Beauty, truth and rarity here enclosed in cinders lie, and any assurance, any hint of survival in a world beyond, is withheld. The Phoenix goes into death as into a new nest, the Dove rests for ever, and they have not perpetuated themselves on earthnot because they could not have done so, but because they were too completely chaste to wish it: What is the point of this line? For we must wast together in that fire, Their eares hungry of each word, Furthermore, this interpretation is consonant with Shakespeare's own Phoenix symbolism in Timon (II, ii, 29), Antony and Cleopatra (III, ii, 12), Cymbeline (I, vi, 17) and the Tempest (III, iii, 23).21 On the otherhand, Shakespeare is at one with Donne in availing himself of the Phoenix symbol to celebrate a mutual flame rather than an unreturned passion. Scripture doth prove, Such comfort fervent love Phoenix and the Turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. 32 Alvarez reminds us that all this lamentation is over a couple of 'dead birds'; but such an observation signals the beginning rather than the end of speculation. What Reason has seen is, of course, the paradox in its variations. A. W. Bennett's statement, when he was confronted with a similar situation regarding Chaucer's Parlement of Foules: Even if we were to discover definite evidence of such an occasion, the discovery would illuminate this poem no more than the knowledge of any similar origin or setting . The Threnos, then, is a lyrical complaint which works with the Summons to dramatize Petrarchan ambivalence, a dilemma arising from two contradictory attitudes to sexual love, the vulgar and the sublime. . XV, c. IX. 5 Lee L. Charbonneau-Lassay, Le Bestiaire du Christ (Descle, 1940), p. 634. In the stormy east-wind straining, The pale yellow woods were waning, The broad stream in his banks complaining, Heavily the low sky raining Over tower'd Camelot; alliteration metaphor personification simile Elizabeth Watson, writing principally about Chester's contribution (and assuming that Shakespeare followed his lead), proposes the identification with the Queen and then says that the Turtle need not represent anyone particularly; 'the allegory operates on the spiritual plane . Within three months of Thomas's execution, in December 1586, John Salusbury married Ursula Stanley, an illegitimate but acknowledged daughter of the fourth Earl of Derby, the most powerful man in North Wales, who is said to have 'made liberal provision' for her.3 The alliance was important for young John Salusbury, to whom and his bride fell the responsibility of giving new life to his name. . The swanns that lave their blacke feet in the streames, In mentioning these possibilities I am not, I hope, laying undue emphasis on the esoteric and exotic. They are various imperfections of the heart, symbolized in the poems by the serpent (sometimes called tyrant), Envy, the serpent who caused disloyalty in Eden, lack of faith and broken troth, the failure of love between servant and lord. Soit unique chant par un Phoenix unique. Thus the divine faculty of Reason, at the very moment of ascending into divine Love, descends into the world, to act as Chorus, to participate in the love-death of two birds. Carleton Brown (Poems by Sir John Salusbury and Robert Chester, EETS [London, 1914], pp.xlvii-liv) points out that Robert Chester of Royston was admitted to the Middle Temple on 14 Feb. 1600 and might there have met Sir John Salusbury (MT 19 Mar. And put to flight the author of my fears. . Shakespeare's better known collaborators in Love's Martyr were Marston (MT c.1595), Jonson and Chapman; the book was planned by Robert Chester, an obscure patriot variously identified as a Hertfordshire justice of the peace or a Middle Templar.1 There were two editions of this book, one published in 1601, two years before Elizabeth's death, the other in 1611, eight years after the accession of James. With the sixth stanza we reach the second portion of the poem. For Matchett, "terse diction within disjunct lines," verbal paradox, and a broad use of metaphor combine to create a "texture of complexities and ambiguities" that he saw as the prevailing nature of the poem. ", 23 When Arviragus enters, bearing Imogen in his arms, he says with effective simplicity, "The bird is dead / That we have made so much on" (IV, ii, 197-8), and the predominant connotations are smallness and pitiableness in the loss of brave flight and song.