The Phoenix and the Turtle

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) · 1601

Let the bird of loudest lay,
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.

Where this text comes from

First published in Robert Chester, Love’s Martyr: or, Rosalins Complaint (London, imprinted for E. B., 1601), in the appended “Diverse Poeticall Essaies … upon the first subject: viz. the Phoenix and Turtle”. Printed there without a title and subscribed “William Shake-speare”; the title this record carries is a later editors’ one. Read in Grosart’s 1878 New Shakspere Society reprint of the 1601 book, which reproduces the title page (“LONDON, Imprinted for E. B., 1601”) and lists the piece in its contents as “Let the bird of lowdest lay.” Threnos. “William Shake-speare”. Not one of Shakespeare’s own volumes. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-12.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/william-shakespeare_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (2)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L68.

Cite this poem

William Shakespeare (1564–1616). “The Phoenix and the Turtle.” First published in Robert Chester, Love’s Martyr: or, Rosalins Complaint (London, imprinted for E. B., 1601), in the appended “Diverse Poeticall Essaies … upon the first subject: viz. the Phoenix and Turtle”. Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/william-shakespeare/the-phoenix-and-the-turtle/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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