CHAPTER LII

THE PHENIX

DANTE saw this miracle in Hell. A thief, having been

burnt to ashes quicker

bitten by a demoniacal serpent,
than you could write O or I.
he came to life again in his old form.

Then, like the phenix,

Ne O si tosto mai, nè I si scrisse,
Com' ei s' accese ed arse, e cener tutto
Convenne che cascando divenisse:
E poi che fu a terra si distrutto,
La polver si raccolse per sè stessa,
E in quel medesmo ritornò di butto:
Così per li gran savi si confessa1
Che la Fenice more e poi rinasce,
Quando al cinquecentesimo anno appressa.
Erba nè biado in sua vita non pasce,
Ma sol d' incenso lagrime ed amomo;
E nardo e mirra son l' ultime fasce3

2

Never was O nor I more swiftly penned
Than, sinking down, all ashes he became !

As soon as thus dissolved in dust he fell,

Straightway the ashes gathered from the earth

1 Cf. this verse with Inf. XXIX, 63, where Dante tells of the ants from whose seed arose the new people in Ægina:

'Secondo che i poeti hanno per fermo.'

2 Literally (according to Toynbee's text), 'but only tears of incense and amomum.' 8 Inf. XXIV, 100–111.

To their old figure: thus great sages tell
The phenix dies, then hath a second birth,
About the term of her five hundred years,
Through which on no green herb nor blade she feeds,
But incense only and the amomum's tears,

While myrrh and spikenard form her funeral weeds.

- PARSONS.

Though our poet says, 'Così per li gran savi si confessa' (thus by the great sages is avowed), he borrows this tale without the shadow of a doubt from Ovid's Metamorphoses.1

How did the phenix look? Albert of Bollstädt, Bishop of Ratisbon, knows to the minutest detail; yet he squints at the story like a heretic. Here are his views: That the bird Phenix dwells in Eastern Arabia

1 Lib. XV, 392-402 : —

'Una est, quæ reparet seque ipsa reseminet, ales:
Assyrii phoenica vocant. Non fruge neque herbis,
Sed turis lacrimis et suco vivit amomi.
Hæc ubi quinque suæ complevit sæcula vitæ,
Ilicis in ramis tremulæve cacumine palmæ
Unguibus et puro nidum sibi construit ore.
Quo simul ac casias et nardi lenis aristas
Quassaque cum fulva substravit cinnama murra,
Se superimponit, finitque in odoribus ævum.
Inde ferunt, totidem qui vivere debeat annos,

Corpore de patrio parvum phoenica renasci,' etc.

That Dante borrowed the story from Ovid will be obvious to whoever reads the description of other 'gran savi,' e.g. SOLINUS, Polyh. 33; PLINY, Nat. Hist. X, 2; ISIDOR OF SEVILLE, Etymol. XII, vii, 22; STATIUS, Silv. II, 4; BRUNETTO LATINI, Tresor, p. 214.

Ovid and Pliny seem to have done most to form medieval opinion as to this thaumaturgic pheasant-like bird. Pliny avers that he got his information from Manilius, a senator of vast learning. Pliny evidently believes the tale; so does Brunetto Latini. Dante, like Albertus Magnus, seems not to believe.

is written by those who look rather into mystic theology than into nature. They say, indeed, that this bird without a male or mingling of sexes is the only one of its kind and liveth 340 years alone. It is furthermore, as they say, of an eagle's size, with a head like a peacock, and tufted cheeks. About the neck it gleams with a golden splendour, has a long tail of a brilliant hue (purpurei coloris), dotted with certain rose-tinted feathers, as the peacock's tail is decked with certain eye-shaped orbs. And this variety is of wondrous beauty.'

Having described how the phenix burns up at Heliopolis, then rises from its own ashes quick and whole, the bishop thus concludes, 'As Plato saith, not by us are to be calumniated those things which are set down in the books of holy shrines.' 1

There was, as Ovid says, but one phenix in the world. This is why Dante exclaims in his letter to the Italian cardinals, 'But, O Fathers, deem me not the phenix of the universe; for, what I am chattering about, all are murmuring or thinking or dreaming.' 2

1 De Animalibus, lib. XXIII, tract. unicus. The version of Albertus Magnus is repeated almost word for word by Benvenuto da Imola.

2 Epist. VIII, viii, 122-123: 'Sed, o Patres, ne me phœnicem æstimetis in orbe terrarum. Omnes enim, quæ garrio, murmurant aut cogitant, aut somniant.' Cf. first line of citation in note I, p. 310.

CHAPTER LIII

THE SWALLOW

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WHETHER or not the proverb, 'One swallow does not make a summer,' was first written down by Aristotle, it is in Aristotle that Dante found it; for, to point an argument, Dante says in his Convivio,2 Siccome dice il mio maestro Aristotile nel primo dell' Etica, "una rondine non fa primavera,"'-' as my master, Aristotle, says in the first book of the Ethics, "one swallow does not make spring."

It is again from a Greek, and not a Latin source that Dante draws, in alluding to the hour when Philomela grieves. The Latin poets commonly changed Philomela into a swallow, and Procne into a nightingale, whereas the Greeks got the legend the other way. Dante dreamt when dreams are almost divine :

Near to the dawning and about the hour
When first the little swallow 'gins her sad lays,
Mayhap remembering afresh her ancient woes.

Nell' ora che comincia i tristi lai
La rondinella presso alla mattina
Forse a memoria de' suoi primi guai

1 ARISTOTLE, Ethics, I, vii, 16 (1098 a. 18). See EDW. MOORE, Studies in Dante, First Series, p. 376.

2 I, ix, 60-62.

8 See Tozer's comment on Purg. IX, 15. In Purg. XVII, 19-20, Dante identifies Procne with the nightingale. 4 Purg. IX, 13-15.

Thus the twittering swallow sings 'lays,' like the cranes; yet here the swallow's feigned reminiscence of a human existence undoubtedly influenced Dante's conception of the swallow's song.

The poet strikes a truer note when he breaks out at his adversaries that it would be better for them to fly low, like a swallow, than, like a kite, to sweep in lofty circles over things most vile.2

1 See chapter on 'The Crane,' pp. 283–284.

2 Conv. IV, vi, 187-190, 'Meglio sarebbe a voi, come rondine volare basso, che come nibbio altissime rote fare sopra cose vilissime.' See chapter on 'The Kite,' p. 253.