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Phoenix and Turtle
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Mod
Here is an interesting page, if not fancy, insightful...
http://www.azdoverelease.com/dove_his...
τρυγών trygōn
the word "turtle dove" in Greek means "to murmur"
Thanks, Candy! Overloaded with prosaic tasks at the moment, but will get back to you on this.Jessica
I am so glad you posted this! I have been thinking about this poem now for days. I don't know how many readers it will attract, but we could regard reading it and trying to understand it as an open project that will go on indefinitely.The poem was described by I.A. Richards as "the most mysterious poem in English".
Some initial thoughts:
The poem is, in a sense, Shakespeare's only lyric poem. The anthology lyrics you see are either songs or short poems that are taken from the plays, and are therefore really part of the dramatic poetry of the plays, or else selections from the sonnets. But the sonnets are both single poems and a part of a sequence of poems whose interconnections mean that each one is not just an isolated lyric. His other poetry outside the plays is narrative poetry. As his "only lyric poem", it has to be important!
The poem is part of a larger publication: it is a tribute poem (among others) to Chester for his "Love's Martyr". The best online version of Chester's poem is here,
http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?...
(Copy & paste!)
Of Chester's poem you might ask not so much what is it about, as what is it not about. It is obscure, goes everwhere, and much of it is actually pretty badly written. Example stanza (modernised by me):
The last not least, surpassing all the rest,
Was Oxford's honourable foundation,
Since when with learning's glory it is blest,
Begun by the godly exhortation
Of the Abbot Neotus' direction:
From whose rich womb pure angel-like Divinity
Hath sprung to save us from Calamity.
(Oxford University as a bulwark of Protestantism!) Chester's poem ends with the immolation of Phoenix and Turtle, which gives the starting point for S's poem. Chester's poem connects with S's, but is certainly not the clue to understanding it.
The bird imagery in the poem reminds me of the bird imagery that runs all through Macbeth. The whole poem reminds me of "Who killed cock robin". As a child I always found this such a sad nursery rhyme I did not want to hear it. But perhaps the intention of "who killed cock robin" is to amuse. Similarly with S's poem you can't work out whether it is profoundly serious or light and playful. Both perhaps.
On the threnos,
Leaving no posterity:
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Actually the turtle is male ("the turtle and his queen"), and the phoenix and turtle live in "married chastity". Do they love each other, or does each love something else? The phoenix resurrects, and lives again. Like S's poetry, it lives for ever. The turtle is the mortal lover, whose earthly love dissolves with the body. This is the theme of the sonnets is it not, that the poetry is immortal, made out of love for something mortal? But I think phoenix and turtle are not poet-as-lover and person-loved, so much as two sides of the same person, poet and lover.
Candy's dove-history link very interesting, especially the Mosaic tradition of dove sacrifice, which I had not realised. Analogous to the lamb sacrifice at passover. The dove is released with the raven out of the ark by Noah. The raven doesn't return (ill-omen) but the dove does, with an olive twig (good-omen). Hence the idea of the dark bird of ill-omen, the light bird of good-omen. S combines them with the idea of the passover sacrifice in Twelfth Night,I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,
To spite a raven's heart within a dove.
In P&T, what is the "foul precurrer (=precursor) of the fiend"? The notes in my edition say "owl", but to me it seems like the raven.
Perhaps we should look at the birds one by one,
"Let the bird of loudest lay..."
The bird with the loudest song? But a lay also means a poem ("the lay of the last minstrel" and so on), so I think it means the poet with the greatest poem.
Mod
I was vaguely aware that there was an anthology of poems associated with this one. And I want to read Chesters. I have a hunch it won't help unravel this poem...but perhaps we might see if S was reacting/rejecting or embracing some of the ideas in Chesters poem...and that might be insight.
Mod
I began to copy and paste this poem...until I realized it's insanely LONG!!!!!!
I may as well keep what I've copied and pasted but that is intimidating to say the least.
At the first impression perhaps S wondered if he could say as much in lesser words ha ha
Do we have to read Chester's poem? Help!
Fascinating discussion! As it's the first time I've read the poem, I don't have much to contribute! I think I am less equipped to criticise Shakespeare's poetry than his plays,as I haven't really read that much of it. Some sonnets, and of course, the poetry as it comes in the plays. Often, I only start getting views after really knowing my way round a piece, and so this opinionated reader hasn't got any views at the moment..."'I dunno' Jessica said."Sounds about right, I s'pose..."
Mod
Jessica...I think it's way better to not know when approaching any kind of story. It's just great and that means you're open minded!
Jessica, you are equipped! His plays are poems, so you have read tons of his poetry.(I've worked out that people who listen to pop music, which is everyone except me, spend all their time with poetry -- the lyrics of the songs. Yet they will deny any interest in poetry. Why is that? It's not the greatest poetry, but it is poetry.)
I've started to read Chester's poem, and will create a separate thread. I suggest we separate Love's martyr from Phoenix and Turtle, and Candy truncate her long quotes accordingly. it would be nice to attract extra readers .... but no compulsion (Jessica probably thinks I'm mad anyway.)
Here is a nice graphic, from an artist who slightly misunderstood the type of Turtle S's poem is about,
Mod
Me too. But S's turtle's are always winged. Is there a hint of both types of turtle in Paulina's words in Winter's Tale?I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some wither'd bough and there
My mate, that's never to be found again,
Lament till I am lost.
Similarly in S, "cat" almost never means a cat of the feline type. It's usually a polecat.
As in Paulina's words, the turtle is of course the bird of constant love, with its single mate, and the "billing and cooing" habit, which is like kissing and love sounds. So Turtle, I would assert, stands for Love, and Phoenix for Immortality.
I'm so glad that you're discussing The Phoenix and The Turtle here!! You have inspired me to pick it up and read it again, and I really find the language so beautiful (as in all of Shakespeare's work) but in addition to the beautiful language, I really enjoy the poem. I need to go back and read all the posts in this thread, because I took this poem literally (silly me -- I should know better!!!) I thought it really was about a phoenix and an actual turtle!!!! Oh my goodness, do I have a lot to learn here!!!
Thanks!!!!
Barbara, welcome. I think a purely literal reading may be a good starting point anyway.I've just looked "turtle" up in the COED -- Concise Oxford English Dictionary (it's not that concise: the entry for "turtle" comes on page 2,387!) "Turtle" always meant turtle-dove in the middle ages, and the earliest instance of its use for the sea-creature is 1657, 40 years after Shakespeare died. So my idea that Paulina's "turtle" may have carried both meanings is wrong. I've noticed in Elizabethan poetry that it always means a bird.
Martin wrote: "Barbara, welcome. I think a purely literal reading may be a good starting point anyway.I've just looked "turtle" up in the COED -- Concise Oxford English Dictionary (it's not that concise: the en..."
Thanks Martin! This is absolutely fascinating, and I am so happy that I found this group. I studied Shakespeare for many years, but it was quite a while ago, and in the courses that I took we focused mainly on the plays. I'm going to reread the poem again when I get home tonight.
I have a feeling I'm going to learn a lot in this group, and I'm really looking forward to it!!!
Hello, everyone, trouble with PC, so only sporadic ) use at the moment. Welcome, Barbara (are you the Barbara from Australia with whom I am friends already or another?. It certainly is a fascinating poem,but I still don't have much to say about it as yet. I always foolishly assumed it was an amphibian, too.
Sorry, this is not the place, but do you like Shakespaare's problem comedies? For instance - wait for it, 'All's Well That Ends Well'? Martin and I had a convoluted discussion about that, with Candy hoping to join in later...
Jessica
Picking up on barbara's idea of a purely literal reading, we have the immolation of two creatures, and their "obsequies" (is that the right word?) by a collection of other creatures. All birds. A bit like alice drying after the pool of tears,
At this literal level, there is no mention in the poem of the legend of the phoenix, so it is as if phoenix and turtle die together. The turtle is male. If the turtle's queen is the phoenix, the phoenix, perhaps, is female. But chastity is stressed throughout. One has the sense of a pair of young lovers, physically separated by necessity, in a suicide pact. A variant on Romeo and Juliet, perhaps, without their marriage by Friar Lawrence.
One of many interpretations ....
I think the central section is Metaphysical. So, apparently, did Empson, but I've not been able to find his essay on P and T. His essay on S's narrative poems I do have, and it goes into Chester's poem, but like so much Empson, it is not the easiest reading.
Anyway, the Metaphysical idea .... see next post ....
Metaphysical poetry builds up elaborate poetic ideas from simple ideas, often using scientific and philosophical learning. As a student, I heard a story that illustrated the idea (true in mathematics) that a false statement implies the truth of any other statement. It's a story about G H Hardy talking at Trinity High Table, and I found it just now on the internet:"A story is told that the famous English mathematician G.H. Hardy made a remark at dinner that falsity implies anything. A guest asked him to prove that 2 + 2 = 5 implies that McTaggart is the Pope. Hardy replied, 'We also know that 2 + 2 = 4, so that 5 = 4. Subtracting 3 we get 2 = 1. McTaggart and the Pope are two, hence McTaggart and the Pope are one.'"
(McTaggart was a Cambridge philosopher.)
In maths, the idea that a false statement implies the truth of any other (false) statement lies behind the use of reductio ad absurdum as a method of proof.
Shakespeare seems to anticipate all this.
So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
2 are in love, but create an "essence" of 1. So 2=1. "Number" is thereby destroyed, that is, mathematics collapses.
"property" means, I take it, individual existence. Property is "appalled" by the consequences of "2=1".
Reason is overturned as "division" (the number 2) grows together (becomes 1).
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded, ....
I take to mean that to the P and T, although each was not idential to the other ("either, neither"), their elemental form ("simple") became a compound, like an element and compound in modern chemistry. (I found the old meaning of "simple", "composed of one substance, ingredient, or element", in the COED again.)
Finally reason admits that 2=1 here,
How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Was John Donne as ever as subtle as this?
Barbara, please stick around. We are desperate for reinforcements in this place!
I semse a logical fallacy in MacTaggert's bizarre argument, but am too lazy to go looking for it...Fascinating analysis, Martin...Indeed, Barbara, I second Martin's comments.
Jessica
Mod
Okay, I am back in Chicago and really ready to read...
Welcome Barbara great to "meet" you!
The notes here are fantastic...and side note Jessica, I have Tillyard and am reading it now regarding comedies and problems...
let me catch up[ here and come back...
Candy
Candy, Tillyard, that's so good, I know he's an old-fashioned critic but I think his analysis - that Bertram is a callow, gruff, inarticulate youth generally (but glib in his insincere courting of Diana) solves the 'problem' of Bertram's character, and his truncated apology in the last scene of 'All's Well', as mentioned above...Martin, Sorry, didn't include a label on my last return with address...
Jessica
Mod
At the moment I have been concentrating on the "tyrant wing" and "eagle" in this poem.
Is the tyrant wing about the wee bird that eats flies?
" These birds are noted for their irritability and
pugnacity, and for the courage with which they attack
rapacious birds far exceeding them in size and
strength. They are mostly plain-colored birds, but
often have a bright-colored crown patch. A few species,
as the scissorstail, are handsomely colored. The
kingbird and pewee are familiar examples.
Tyrant flycatcher (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species
of tyrants which have a flattened bill, toothed at the
tip, and resemble the true flycatchers in habits. The
Acadian flycatcher (Empidonax Acadicus) and the
vermilion flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubineus) are
examples.
Tyrant shrike (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of
American tyrants of the genus Tyrannus having a strong
toothed bill and resembling the strikes in habits. The
kingbird is an example."
from here:
http://dictionary.die.net/tyrant%20bird
Mod
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Ph...
A Phoebe bird is also related to the flycatcher bird with "tyrant wing"
From Wiki:
"In Greek mythology "radiant" Phoebe ( /ˈfiːbiː/; Greek: Φοίβη Phoibe), the feminine counterpart of the name Phoebus, was one of the original Titans, who were one set of sons and daughters of Uranus and Gaia.[1] She was traditionally associated with the moon (see Selene), as in Michael Drayton's Endimion and Phœbe, (1595), the first extended treatment of the Endymion myth in English. Her consort was her brother Coeus, with whom she had two daughters, Leto, who bore Artemis and Apollo, and Asteria, a star-goddess who bore an only daughter Hecate.[2]
Through Leto she was the grandmother of Apollo and Artemis. The names Phoebe and Phoebus came to be applied as a synonym for Artemis and an epithet of Apollo.[3] According to a speech that Æschylus, in Eumenides, puts in the mouth of the Delphic priestess herself, she received control of the Oracle at Delphi from Themis: "Phoebe in this succession seems to be his private invention," D.S. Robertson noted,[4] reasoning that in the three great allotments of oracular powers at Delphi, corresponding to the three generations of the gods, "Ouranos, as was fitting, gave the oracle to his wife Gaia and Kronos appropriately allotted it to his sister Themis." In Zeus' turn to make the gift, however, Aeschylus could not report that the oracle was given directly to Apollo, who had not yet been born, Robertson notes, and thus Phoebe was interposed. These supposed male delegations of the powers at Delphi as expressed by Aeschylus are not borne out by the usual modern reconstruction of the sacred site's pre-Olympian history."
Mod
Eagle, swan, crow, tyrant, phoenix, turtledove,
And still more numbers, or numerical words?
co-supremems, threne, reason none, division, compounded, sole, precurrer, augur, twain, treble-dated, one, two distincts division none, number there in love, distance, twixt, single, double, neither two over one
These tyrant birds are pretty creatures, are they not? I expected the avian equivalent of a tyrannosaurus. but it means they are "aggressive defenders" apparently. Like the british robin. I must say I took "tyrant" to mean birds that eat other birds. Hawks and so on. But perhaps it means something quite different. S seems designed on trapping us with offering plausible but incorrect meanings. For example,
Augur of the fever's end
You'd imagine the end of the fever is when you recover and get better, but of course the fever ends when you die, which is surely the intended meaning.
That defunctive music can
"defunctive" as in the "pavane pour une infante defunte". Obviously it's the princess, not the pavan, which is defunct, "defunctive music" is like the pavan, it is not the music which is dead, but the music is for those who are dead. Equally, "can" goes with the priest, not with the music. The priest "cans" music in the same way that "you ken John Peel". It means "know".
Every stanza has a puzzle. Take the next one,
And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender makest
With the breath thou givest and takest...
I think "gender" means progeny here. The crow seems to breed its black offspring with its breath ... or is that completely wrong? What is treble dated?
The list of numerical words is indeed remarkable.A certain deja vu here ... I protested in A&C that tribe and its derivate words isn't connected with three. Candy was able to prove that it was. So I felt a proper fool. Here I'm about to protest that "threne" is not connected with 3, but in a sene it doesn't matter, since I believe S switches to three line stanzas in the threne, or threnos, because the word threne suggests 3.
Incidentally, why is the switch from 4 line stazas to 3 line stanzas so magically effective? To quote Barbara from above "I really find the language so beautiful".
Mod
What the switch does to me is seem to speed up the music of the poem.
--- then there is the "death-divining swan". Here is a swan that foresees death. S is thought of as a swan because of Jonson's poem "Sweet swan of Avon..." written to S after S's death. (I believe the swans on the Avon at Stratford are only there because of jonson's poem -- they were bred artificially.) The connection has to be a coincidence, but what a coincidence!
Hey, am I the only person here?The ending,
. . . .
Truth and beauty buried be.
. . . .
To this urn let those repair
. . . .
This must be where the last two lines of Keats' Grecian Urn comes from(?)
Mod
No, I'm still here just having trouble getting internet hooked up. the strange weather we have here...we have constant power outages...and I have to get my computer set up and repaired. So when I check in here it is on my phone at wifi cafe or at a rented computer. It's not easy out here in the suburbs to get things organized!
But I'm working on it.
I suppose the immediate response to this poem or one interpretation could be about politicians...like each bird represents a kind of political viuew. I do have the sense that the poem must be about something forbidden...why else use birds as the subjects? So what would be forbidden at his time of life...sex, catholicism, homoeroticism...?
Well yes, I certainly think the poem carries with it the idea of execution by burning, applied to many in the 16th century for having the wrong opinions. The double burning of phoenix and turtle keeps reminding me of Ridley and Latimer.
Increasingly I think it's about poetry writing. But that there is no simple allegory where you can match each element in the poem into what it stands for. Around the web you get the idea that it's a celebration of "Platonic love", but surely not. Why should Shakespeare celebrate such an arid concept? I think the married chastity stands for something else, but also prevents us making a simple interpretation of turtle/phoenix being male/female lovers.I think I'll leave it there for now. I wonder if this thread will be added to in the future? I see that only 7 people have to date ever looked at it (3, apart from the 4 posters).
Incidentally, for the authenticity of this poem as a work of S, seehttps://www.goodreads.com/photo/group...
Mod
From here:
http://www.kenyonreview.org/2013/01/s...
Or this.....
https://www.theguardian.com/books/boo...
"It seems that the author of Romeo and Juliet was not content to offer an allegory of the mystical union—neither the mutual annihilation of lovers, nor its larger paradigm, the vanishing of the self in God. The poem seems to describe Shunya, but it ends by bewailing what is lost in that Buddhistic self-erasure: Truth and beauty. This is the truth and beauty of Shakespeare’s stage: The personalities, the quarrels, the pettiness, the transcendence, the poetry. “The Phoenix and the Turtle” seems to comprehend the Eastern mystical goal—yet it refuses to acknowledge that goal as humankind’s highest ideal. Instead it focuses on the truth and beauty that dies in religious self-immolation. It does not progress to the consolation of the rebirth. It stops and insists we look at what was squandered in the cinders. Shakespeare himself was no stranger to men, like the Puritans, “standing in God’s holy fire,” as a later poet would phrase it. The poem is equally cold to the allure of holy fire and the supposedly renewed, holy self that emerges from it.'
I think this essay is quite brilliant....
Mod
https://www.academia.edu/5840389/The_...
Mod
Fortunately, the mysteries can all be solved, however, if the identity of “Torquato Caeliano” is established as “Giordano Bruno”, who, we know was, in Shakespeare’s eyes, the real “Love’s Martyr” (I use the word “love” here as Bruno used it in his work
Gli Heroici Furori
, where the heroic lover pursues Diana, or Divine Truth; Bruno has been “martyred” through his execution for heresy. In effect, he had pursued truth, as an Actaeon, or an heroic lover, and had been martyred as a direct result)Establishing “Torquato Caeliano” as really “Giordano Bruno” can be done in several interesting ways, beyond just pointing out that the names are a bit similar and are Italian. First, let us consider the meaning of the Italian name “Torquato”. This name continues to be used as an Italian name, though it is not currently popular. Babynamespedia.com explains that “its meaning is derived from (Latin)
torquis
;
torquere
….. Torquatus (Latin) is an original form of the name”
3
and...of course....
Frequency: Uncommon (2 or 3 citations)Source: Oxford Latin Dictionary, 1982 (OLD)Putting the two names together, we get “Ring & sky” or “Ring & heavens”----loosely, it could even be “ring in the sky”. In all probability, “Torquato Caeliano” is a another secretive reference to the sun from a deviously clever playwright, a magician with words, William Shakespeare. Some background may be good here----in an academic article
6
, I have tried to show how Shakespeare created a mysterious historical drama in
Romeo and Juliet
about the fate of mankind and the sun, using simply the fact that the lovers play alone when they are together. The conclusion (implied by the famous tomb scene if read in this allegorical way) that the sun was the ultimate source powering the earth, not coal or fossil fuels, was a scientific idea that Giordano Bruno came up with through his ingenious synthesis of the work of Copernicus and others. And this idea, a Renaissance conception of the power of solar energy, must have surely fascinated William Shakespeare, since he used it over and over again disguising it very cleverly; but, obviously, it was coded most brilliantly and luminously in the famous line “Juliet is the sun”.
Mod
Beauty. Your mathematical poems make more sense after we discuss what Beauty "is".
Beauty as in nature....which is the best out logical definition s connectedness. It is the beauty of nature how everything is connected and interdependent that is beauty.
It's not an idea or philosophy it is a fact of nature and it's beauty is it's optical democracy and interconnectedness.
Therefore Love...Beauty.
Love....Truth.
interconnected...oneness...
"So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain."
and...
"Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called."
message 29. "I was wondering about the switch from 4 lines to 3 ..."This poem has no title but a subtitle "Threnos" in line 53, quite unusual. "Threnos" is a synonym of "Threne" in line 49.
...
Whereupon it made this _Threne_, [49]
To the Phoenix and the Doue,
Co-supremes and starres of Loue,
As Chorus to their Tragique Scene.
Threnos. [53]
...
Threnos is a perfect anagram of Shorten.
Threnos contains all needed letters to spell Threne, or
Threne is a one-way anagram of Threnos.
Three is a one-way anagram of Threne. (Threne = Three + n)
Shortening from four to Three lines is a hint, that we could solve this poem by anagram. "Siren tears" (sonnet 119) has something similar.
In short: Threnos >> Threne >> Three.
The same appears in Twelfth Night: Malvolio >> Olivia >> Viola.
"Every one of these Letters are in my name."—Malvolio
MALVOLIO.
M, O, A, I. This simulation is not as the former:
and yet to crush this a little, it would bow to me,
for every one of these Letters are in my name.
Malvolio = Mal + volio. Mal means evil or malicious; volio can be folio, a leaf of paper (letter). Malvolio is a nameplay of malicious letter with M.O.A.I.
Mod
Threnos...such a heavy word.
Perhaps from "throeo"? "threnoidia"
to cry aloud, to trouble to frighten
which seems where it came to be threnos as a tragedy.
'"song of lamentation," 1630s, from Greek threnodia "lamentation," from threnos "dirge, lament" + oide "ode" (see ode). Greek threnos probably is from PIE imitative root *dher- (3) "to drone, murmur, hum;" source also of Old English dran "drone," Gothic drunjus "sound," Greek tenthrene "a kind of wasp."'
the idea of a drone sound...led me to wonder if the possibility of "thre" being in song...in a "round" when people sing overlapping lyrics or chants? If three voices were singing overlapping and chanting...it does tend to become a drone.
So I googled "three singing voices and threnos"
Ad found this...
"in fact, in the Latin tradition the latinized "threni" was often used as the title of Lamentations, and commentators frequently provided etymological explanations for it. The etymology that had to most currency was that the title "Threni" was derived from "terns", "three at a time." This was explained by the fact that each verse of Lamentations chapters one, two, and four consists of three "clausudae", so that each Hebrew letter name would be followed by three clauses."
https://books.google.com/books?id=_vr...
Further...
'But what some say that they are called "Threni" as if it were "terni" (that is three at a time) is not an interpretation nor. strictly speaking, an etymology. But it alludes to the name, since the single letters of the alphabet are bound to three verses at a time. And this is part of the allegorical interpretation, since we have to weep in three ways: in heart, mouth and deed". The final sentence is drawn from St. Cher's Postilla super Threnos.'
Pecham..."Expositio in Lamentationes"
Phoenix and Turtle tells the story of a woman's revenge, a Love's Martyr that changed the course of England's history. The key is in line 19.And thou treble dated Crow, [17]
That thy sable gender mak'st.
With the breath thou giu'st and tak'st, [19]
Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
One who lives gives breath by oneself; takes one's own breath indicating the termination of life by one's own will, or a sacrifice.
Line 17's "treble dated Crow" alludes to Christ's love and sacrifice. "Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice." In this poem, Turtle is the denier, Crow the martyr. (My phone's ringtone is set to Rooster, truly.)
Amy Robsart's sudden death prevented the join of Elisabeth Tudor and Robert Dudley, which is the theme of this poem. To prove that logically, the hint of threnos-threne-three is essential.
Mod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Rob...
http://www.elizabethfiles.com/did-rob...
http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/Amy...
https://allthingsrobertdudley.wordpre...
http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/external/c...
Love's Martyr: or, Rosalin's Complaint was published in 1601. Three mysterious names appear on the front page:Rosalin, Robert Chester, and Torquato Caeliano.
Shakespeare used Threnos=shorten and Threnos-Threne-Three to tell us ways to solve mysterious things, including above three names.
"Torquato Caeliano" can be split to
torqua-to-cael-iano, which is a perfect anagram of
quarto-to-ceal-anoy. (i=y in Shakespeare's time.)
Ceal is an obsolete form of seal, and
anoy of annoy (both from OED).
The name says, this is a "quarto to seal annoy."
All names created by Shakespeare have similar features.
Prospero=O-prosper, Miranda=in-drama.
Miranda is Prospero's daughter.
The Tempest as Shakespeare's First Play says,
"O, prosper in drama."
Imogen=I'm gone, Leonatus=to-unseal.
Leonatus Posthumus is Imogen's husband.
Cymbeline as Shakespeare's Last Play says,
"I'm gone, posthumus to unseal."
Mod
Rosalin, Robert Chester, and Torquato Caeliano.
Shakespeare used Threnos=shorten and ..."
Intense....we need a dictionary of these! Or is there one ?
Candy wrote: "Intense....we need a dictionary of these! Or is there one ?"Nothing today. To build it needs to break many, many riddles, from The Tempest, Hamlet, Sonnets. . . .
"On 13 Aug. 1560 Anne Dowe of Brentford was the first of a long line of offenders to be sent to prison for asserting that Elizabeth was with child by Dudley."—Dictionary of National Biography (1885) Volume 16, page 113.Phoenix and Turtle (Shakespeare's most obscure work) talks about this rumor. If it be decoded in Elizabethan days, then Robert Chester (a ghost) and William Shakespeare would be sent to prison.
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near!
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender makest
With the breath thou givest and takest,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
'Twixt the turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix' sight;
Either was the other's mine.
Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded,
That it cried, How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.
Threnos.
Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix' nest
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be:
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.