The Phœnix was largely adopted by the alchemists as their emblem,
and afterwards was a frequent sign used by pharmacists. According to
Herodotus this bird, which was worshipped by the Egyptians, was of
about the size of an eagle, with purple and gold plumage, and a purple
crest. Its eyes sparkled like stars; it lived a solitary life in the
Arabian desert, and either came to Heliopolis, the city of the sun, to
die and be burned in the temple of that city, or its ashes were brought
there by its successor. There was only one phœnix at the same time, and
it lived for 500 years. The legends vary as to its longevity, but 500
years is the period usually assigned. When the phœnix knew that its
time had come, it made its own funeral pyre out of spiced woods, and
the sun provided the fire. Out of the marrow of its bones came a worm,
which quickly grew into a new phœnix, who, after burying its parent in
Egypt, returned to Arabia.
[Illustration: PHŒNIX.]
The Talmud relates some curious legends of the phœnix, which the Jews
believed to be immortal. One story is that when Eve had eaten the
forbidden fruit she gave some to all the animals in the Garden of Eden,
and that the phœnix was the only one which refused. Hence it escaped
the curse of death which overtook the rest of the animal creation.
Another legend is that when it was in the ark, and when all the
other animals were clamouring to be fed, the phœnix was quiet. Noah,
observing it, asked if it was not hungry, to which the phœnix replied,
“I saw you were busy, so would not trouble you,” an answer which so
pleased Noah that he blessed it with eternal life. In the book of Job,
xxix, 18, recalling his earlier glory, the patriarch says, “Then I said
I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.” Many
Jewish scholars believe that the word translated sand should be phœnix,
and our Revised Version gives “phœnix” as an alternative rendering. It
is easy to appreciate how aptly this would express Job’s idea. Some of
the Hebrew commentators translate the verse in Ps. ciii, 5, “So that
thy youth is renewed like the eagle,” by substituting phœnix for eagle.