There is a bird named the phoenix, which dwells in India and is never
found elsewhere. This bird is always alone and without companion, for
its like cannot be found, and there is no other bird which resembles it
in habits or appearance[8]. At the end of five hundred years it feels
that it has grown old, and loads itself with many rare and precious
spices, and flies from the desert away to the city of Leopolis. There,
by some sign or other, the coming of the bird is announced to a priest
of that city, who causes fagots to be gathered and placed upon a
beautiful altar, erected for the bird. And so, as I have said, the bird,
laden with spices, comes to the altar, and smiting upon the hard stone
with its beak, it causes the flame to leap forth and set fire to the
wood and the spices. When the fire is burning brightly, the phoenix lays
itself upon the altar and is burned to dust and ashes.
[Footnote 8: "Were man as rare as phoenix."--'As You Like It,' iv. 3.]
Then comes the priest and finds the ashes piled up, and separating them
softly he finds within a little worm, which gives forth an odor sweeter
than that of roses or of any other flower. The next day and the next the
priest comes again, and on the third day he finds that the worm has
become a full-grown and full-fledged bird, which bows low before him and
flies away, glad and joyous, nor returns again before five
hundred years[9].
[Footnote 9:
"But as when
The Bird of Wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir."--'Henry VIII.,' v. 5.]