#WingedWordsWindsday: 06/29/2022 -- A Salute to the Phoenix Generation!

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 1, No. 35: June 29, 2022

 

 

A Salute to the Phoenix Generation

 

Introduction by the Editor:

The Phoenix Cycle

·         The Phoenix Cycle is a historical era that lasts for 500 years; it derives its name from the 500-year lifespan of the mythical firebird. Every 500 years, Western civilization has to reinvent itself. Old ways die, and new ways are born.

·         The year 2034 marks the start of another Phoenix Cycle. The last Phoenix Cycle began in 1534, in the midst of the Renaissance and Reformation and the Age of Discovery. Before that, Phoenix Cycles began in 1034, 534, 34 CE (see below), 467 BCE, etc.

·         The advent of a new Phoenix Cycle is why we appear to have so much chaos – and progress -- in the world right now.

·         This is why we also have so many “rising stars” among our young people today. They are here for a reason – to light our way into a better future during the new Phoenix Cycle that is dawning right before our very eyes.

·         What we do today will have repercussions for the next 500 years (and beyond) – what an opportunity we have to change the world for the better!

 

“Ode” (1874)

By Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

 

1. We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale Moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world forever, it seems.

 

2. With wonderful deathless ditties,

We build up the world’s great cities,

And out of a fabulous story,

We fashion an empire’s glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song’s measure

Can trample a kingdom down.

 

3. We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the Earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself with our mirth;

And overthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world’s worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth.

 

4. A breath of our inspiration

Is the life of each generation.

A wondrous thing of our dreaming,

Unearthly, impossible seeming –

The soldier, the king, and the peasant

Are working together in one,

Till our dream shall become their present,

And their work in the world be done.

 

5. They had no vision amazing

Of the goodly house they are raising.

They had no divine foreshowing

Of the land to which they are going:

But on one man’s soul it hath broken,

A light that doth not depart,

And his look, or a word he hath spoken,

Wrought flame in another man’s heart.

 

6. And therefore today is thrilling

With a past day’s late fulfilling.

And the multitudes are enlisted

In the faith that their fathers resisted,

And, scorning the dream of tomorrow,

Are bringing to pass, as they may,

In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,

The dream that was scorned yesterday.

 

7. But we, with our dreaming and singing,

Ceaseless and sorrowless we!

The glory about us clinging

Of the glorious futures we see,

Our souls with high music ringing;

O men! It must ever be

That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,

A little apart from ye.

 

8. For we are afar with the dawning

And the suns that are not yet high,

And out of the infinite morning

Intrepid you hear us cry –

How, spite of your human scorning,

Once more God's future draws nigh,

And already goes forth the warning

That ye of the past must die.

 

9. “Great hail!” we cry to the comers

From the dazzling unknown shore;

Bring us hither your Sun and your summers,

And renew our world as of yore;

You shall teach us your song’s new numbers,

And things that we dreamt not before;

Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,

And a singer who sings no more.

 

A simurgh (Persian phoenix bird) flies over an enthroned princess in this manuscript illustration from the Mughal Empire (17^th or 18^th century CE). (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. … These are the tools we employ, and we know many things.”

à Elric the Technomage in the Babylon 5 Episode “The Geometry of Shadows” (1995)

 

“The Phoenix”

By Claudian (ca. 370-410 CE)

[Public Domain Translation from the Loeb Classical Library, 1922]

                There is a leafy wood fringed by Ocean's farthest marge beyond the Indies and the East where Dawn's panting coursers first seek entrance; it hears the lash close by, what time the watery threshold echoes to the dewy car; and hence comes forth the rosy  morn while night, illumined by those far-shining wheels of fire, casts off her sable cloak and broods less darkly. This is the kingdom of the blessed bird of the Sun where it dwells in solitude defended by the inhospitable nature of the land and immune from the ills that befall other living creatures; nor does it suffer infection from the world of men. Equal to the gods is that bird whose life rivals the stars and whose renascent limbs weary the passing centuries. It needs no food to satisfy hunger nor any drink to quench thirst; the Sun's clear beam is its food, the sea's rare spray its drink — exhalations such as these form its simple nourishment. A mysterious fire flashes from its eye, and a flaming aureole enriches its head. Its crest shines with the Sun's own light and shatters the darkness with its calm brilliance. Its legs are of Tyrian purple; swifter than those of the Zephyrs are its wings of flower-like blue dappled with rich gold.

                Never was this bird conceived nor springs it from any mortal seed, itself is alike its own father and son, and with none to recreate it, it renews its outworn limbs with a rejuvenation of death, and at each decease wins a fresh lease of life. For when a thousand summers have passed far away, a thousand winters gone by, a thousand springs in their course given to the husbandmen that shade​ of which autumn robbed them, then at last, fordone by the number of its years, it falls a victim to the burden of age; as a tall pine on the summit of Caucasus, wearied with storms, keels over with its weight and threatens at last to crash in ruin; one portion falls by reason of the unceasing winds, another breaks away rotted by the rain, another consumed by the decay of years.

                Now the Phoenix's bright eye grows dim and the pupil becomes palsied by the frost of years, like the Moon when she is shrouded in clouds and her horn begins to vanish in the mist. Now his wings, wont to cleave the clouds of heaven, can scarce raise them from the Earth. Then, realizing that his span of life is at an end and in preparation for a renewal of his splendor, he gathers dry herbs from the sun-warmed hills, and making an interwoven heap of the branches of the precious tree of Sheba he builds that pyre which shall be at once his tomb and his cradle.

                On this he takes his seat and as he grows weaker greets the Sun with his sweet voice; offering up prayers and supplications he begs that those fires will give him renewal of strength. Phoebus, on seeing him afar, checks his reins and staying his course consoles his loving child with these words: "Thou who art about to leave thy years behind upon yon pyre, who, by this pretense of death, art destined to rediscover life; thou whose decease means but the renewal of existence and who by self-destruction regainest thy lost youth, receive back thy life, quit the body that must die, and by a change of form come forth more beauteous than ever."

                So speaks he, and shaking his head casts one of his golden hairs and smites willing Phoenix with its life-giving effulgence. Now, to ensure his rebirth, he suffers himself to be burned and in his eagerness to be born again meets death with joy. Stricken with the heavenly flame the fragrant pile catches fire and burns the aged body. The Moon in amaze checks her milk-white heifers and heaven halts his revolving spheres, while the pyre conceives the new life; Nature takes care that the deathless bird perish not, and calls upon the Sun, mindful of his promise, to restore its immortal glory to the world.

                Straightway the life spirit surges through his scattered limbs; the renovated blood floods his veins. The ashes show signs of life; they begin to move though there is none to move them, and feathers clothe the mass of cinders. He who was but now the sire comes forth from the pyre the son and successor; between life and life lay but that brief space wherein the pyre burned.

                His first delight is to consecrate his father's spirit by the banks of the Nile and to carry to the land of Egypt the burned mass from which he was born. With all speed he wings his way to that foreign strand, carrying the remains in a covering of grass. Birds innumerable accompany him, and whole flocks thereof throng in airy flight. Their mighty host shuts out the sky wherever it passes. But from among so vast an assemblage none dares outstrip the leader; all follow respectfully in the balmy wake of their king. Neither the fierce hawk nor the eagle, Jove's own armor-bearer, fall to fighting; in honor of their common master a truce is observed by all. Thus the Parthian monarch leads his barbarous hosts by yellow Tigris' banks, all glorious with jewels and rich ornament and decks his tiara with royal garlands; his horse's bridle is of gold, Assyrian embroidery embellishes his scarlet robes, and proud with sovereignty he lords it over his numberless slaves.

                There is in Egypt a well-known city celebrated for its pious sacrifices and dedicated to the worship of the Sun. Its temples rest on a hundred columns hewn from the quarries of Thebes. Here, as the story tells, the Phoenix is wont to store his father's ashes and, adoring the image of the god, his master, to entrust his precious burden to the flames. He places on the altar that from which he is sprung and that which remains of himself. Bright shines the wondrous threshold; the fragrant shrine is filled with the holy smoke of the altar and the odor of Indian incense, penetrating even as far as the Pelusiac marshes, fills the nostrils of men, flooding them with its kindly influence and with a scent sweeter than that of nectar perfumes the seven mouths of the dark Nile.

                Happy bird, heir to thine own self! Death which proves our undoing restores thy strength. Thine ashes give thee life and though thou perish not thine old age dies. Thou hast beheld all that has been, hast witnessed the passing of the ages. Thou knowest when it was that the waves of the sea rose and overflowed the rocks, what year it was that Phaethon’s error devoted to the flames. Yet did no destruction overwhelm thee; sole survivor thou livest to see the Earth subdued; against thee the Fates gather not up their threads, powerless to do thee harm.

 

Illustration of the phoenix bird from the 15^th-century Nuremberg Chronicle. The Latin caption reads “The Unique Phoenix Bird.” (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“The Phoenix Bird” (1850)

By Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

[Public Domain English Translation, Slightly Updated by the Editor]

                In the Garden of Paradise, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, bloomed a rose bush. Here, in the first rose, a bird was born. His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing. But when Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when she and Adam were driven from Paradise, there fell from the flaming sword of the cherub a spark into the nest of the bird, which blazed up forthwith. The bird perished in the flames; but from the red egg in the nest there fluttered aloft a new one — the one solitary Phoenix bird. The fable tells that he dwells in Arabia, and that every hundred years, he burns himself to death in his nest; but each time a new Phoenix, the only one in the world, rises up from the red egg.

                The bird flutters round us, swift as light, beauteous in color, charming in song. When a mother sits by her infant’s cradle, he stands on the pillow, and, with his wings, forms a glory around the infant’s head. He flies through the chamber of content, and brings sunshine into it, and the violets on the humble table smell doubly sweet.

                But the Phoenix is not the bird of Arabia alone. He wings his way in the glimmer of the Northern Lights over the plains of Lapland, and hops among the yellow flowers in the short Greenland summer. Beneath the copper mountains of Fablun, and England’s coal mines, he flies, in the shape of a dusty moth, over the hymnbook that rests on the knees of the pious miner. On a lotus leaf he floats down the sacred waters of the Ganges, and the eye of the Hindu maid gleams bright when she beholds him.

                The Phoenix bird, do you not know him? The Bird of Paradise, the holy swan of song! On the car of Thespis he sat in the guise of a chattering raven, and flapped his black wings, smeared with the lees of wine; over the sounding harp of Iceland swept the swan’s red beak; on Shakespeare’s shoulder he sat in the guise of Odin’s raven, and whispered in the poet’s ear “Immortality!” and at the minstrels’ feast he fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg.

                The Phoenix bird, do you not know him? He sang to you the Marseillaise, and you kissed the pen that fell from his wing; he came in the radiance of Paradise, and perchance you did turn away from him towards the sparrow who sat with tinsel on his wings.

                The Bird of Paradise — renewed each century — born in flame, ending in flame! Your picture, in a golden frame, hangs in the halls of the rich, but you yourself often fly around, lonely and disregarded, a myth — “The Phoenix of Arabia.”

                In Paradise, when you were born in the first rose, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, you received a kiss, and your right name was given you — your name, Poetry.

 

The constellation Phoenix, as depicted by Corbinian Thomas in 1730. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)