Tacitus in the "_Annales_," vi. 28, mentions the first three of these
appearances.
The _Phœnix-tree_ is the palm. In Greek φοίνιξ (_phoinix_) means both
phœnix and palm-tree. It is thus alluded to in Shakespeare:
"Now will I believe ... that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phœnix throne--one phœnix
At this hour reigneth there."
_The Tempest_, Act iii. sc. 3.
Pliny[20] gives minute particulars concerning the natural history of this
_rara avis in terris_. But the ancient fable is most fully given by Ovid
and translated by Dryden. Ariosto, also, and many early writers refer to
the wonderful creature with fullest faith in its reality. It is no wonder
then, that it became a favourite emblem in an age when it was the fashion
among persons of distinction to have an impress or device with its
accompanying legend or motto. Many persons of historical importance
employed the phœnix to express in metaphor the idea they wished to convey
regarding themselves. Thus we find the phœnix in flames painted for the
device of Jeanne d'Arc, in the Gallery of the Palais Royal, with the
motto: "Invito funere vivat" ("Her death itself will make her live").
Vittoria Colonna (+ 1547) the beautiful and accomplished wife of the
Marquis of Pescara, used the device of a phœnix on her medal.
Mary Queen of Scots used the impress of her mother, Mary of Lorraine, a
phœnix in flames, and the motto: "En ma fin est mon commencement." A
phœnix in flames upon a castle was the badge of Queen Jane Seymour, the
crest of the Seymours being a phœnix in flames issuing from a ducal
coronet. Her son, Edward VI., added the motto, "Nascatur ut alter" ("That
another may be born"), alluding to the nature of her death. She lies
buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with a Latin epitaph by Bishop
Godwin, which has been thus translated by his son Morgan:
"Here a phœnix lieth, whose death
To another phœnix gave birth.
It is to be lamented much
The world at once ne'er knew two such."
Queen Elizabeth placed a phœnix upon her medals and tokens with her
favourite motto: "Semper eadem" ("Always the same"), and sometimes with
the motto "Sola phœnix omnis mundi" ("The sole phœnix of the whole
world"); and on the other side, "Et Angliæ gloria" ("And the glory of
England"), with her portrait full-faced. By the poets of the time,
Elizabeth was often compared to the phœnix. Sylvester, in his "Corona
Dedicatoria," says:
"As when the Arabian (only) bird doth burne
Her aged bodie in sweet flames to death,
Out of her cinders a new bird hath birth,
On whom the beauties of the first return;
From spicy ashes of the sacred urne
Of our dead phœnix (deare Elizabeth)
A new true phœnix lively flourisheth."
And Shakespeare, in the prophecy which he puts into the mouth of Cranmer
at the baptism of the Princess Elizabeth, her great and glorious reign is
foreshadowed, and finally:
"... as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phœnix,
Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration as herself."
Shakespeare elsewhere uses the simile to denote a phœnix among women--a
phœnix, a paragon, unique, because alone of its kind:
"If she be furnished with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird."
_Cymbeline_, Act i. sc. 7.
Many other heraldic mottoes have been associated with this celebrated
device. The following are from "Historic Devices, Badges," &c., by Mrs.
Bury Palliser:
Eleanor, Queen of Francis I. of Austria: "Non est similis illi"
("There is none like her"). She afterwards changed her motto, either
showing how much she was neglected, or to express her determination to
remain single: "Unica semper avis" ("Always a solitary bird").