The soul is in a manner all things. For the modern mind that finds the traditional realm of exegesis and analogy an alien world, the metaphysical voice of Shakespeare may be lost in "unintelligible mystery" or drowned out by the babel of commentary. Shakespeare's negation echoes that of St. Paul: '7 live now not I, but Christ liveth in me. Single Natures double name, That she was never yet that ever knew Nature calls it Troynouant where the descendants of Aeneas redeemed the disaster which lust had brought to Troy; she recalls that Aeneas sacrificed his personal love for Dido to 'reare the Pillars of a Common-weale'. And, paradoxically, this chastity is figured in a consummationa mutual flame (analogous to the erotic one)which leads to annihilation. Nature fears the fires of this kingdom are too 'dull and base' to renew the Phoenix. It brings the reader deeper into the theme of the work, without the author having to The mating of the Phoenix with a Turtle allowed him to bring together the extremes of love, constancy and chastity. And this suggests that such a relationship is possible only in the supra-human order. Figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, and Most specifically, the bird is not the phoenix. 41 Lactantius indeed asserted that 'the self was not the same' when he wrote: 'est eadem sed non eadem, quae est ipsa nec ipsa est.' He was truth and con-stancy,andshewasloveandbeauty.Shewasrarity,andhegraceinallsimplicity, 19 This depends, of course, on the assumption that the bird of the opening stanza is the Phoenix. When Reason cries out in the anthem, it is confused and impressed, but it has not been forced to abdicate. "6 Though I would agree that such is certainly not the meaning of the word, I do not object to considering it an additional overtone. And chiefe obedience that thou owst to me, That thou especially (deare Bird) beware Nature refers to the earthly home of the Phoenix as both Arabia and Brytania; conventional geography is best forgotten for Nature sees two aspects of the single earthly kingdom, corresponding to the twin-personed Phoenix-Dove. We are all one, thy sorrow shall be mine, These are not merely dead, but buried. 157 (1989): 48-71. VII, No. But she is taken to Paphos in Phaethon's chariot, while Nature regales her with a long account of the cities of Britain and the deeds of King Arthur. 23 See Smith's Sonnet XXIII and Roydon's Astrophil quoted above. Such a contradiction nullifies the very concept of number, which has not simply withered away but has been actively murdered, as is emphasized by the order of the rhyming words: "twaine . An other Bird her wings for to display, Quintessence . B. Grosart (1878), p. 239. The title "The Phoenix and the Turtle" is a conventional label. Ed. or is the force rather "Only in them," meaning that it would not be a wonder in others, though it is in them? One major source of confusion in reading Love's Martyr is the pronounsthe curious shifts of person, identity and gender. The story of Phoenix and Turtle Dove became what its authors had predicted, a remarkable chapter in a book of Britain's Monuments. Accept my body as a Sacrifice What matters is Shakespeare's poetic design. Again, I shall not elaborate the poem's paradoxes of love on the same scale as Mr. Alvarez, who in his essay15 is so keenly alert to every linguistic possibility, ambiguity, or complexity in these lines. As to the male turtle dove, though uncommon, it was not unprecedented. 50, 54.) [In the following excerpt, Green explicates The Phoenix and Turtle, calling it a love-elegy that muses on three attitudes toward sexual love: "the vulgar, the sublime, and the chaste.