On a Bird, the Phoenix

Abstract

On a Bird, the Phoenix LACTANTIUS (Translated by A. M. Juster) There is a distant eastern place where, blessed by daybreak, eternal Heaven’s greatest gate lies open— and yet not in summertime nor winter dawn, but when sun glimmers in the sky in spring. There the plateau extends out into open fields; no barrow swells, no empty valley yawns, although this place ascends a dozen ells above our mountains, which are thought a lofty range. The sun-god’s grove is here with many planted trees and lush with grace in constant greenery. When fire from Phaethon’s chariot ignited sky, this place was free of damage from the flames. When flooding overwhelmed the world with waves, it rose above the waters that Deucalion sailed. There is no bloodless illness here, no sad old age, no bitter death, nor cruel anxiety, no monstrous crime, no frenzied lust for wealth, nor rage or fury joined with love for slaughter. Harsh sorrow, sleepless worries, destitution cloaked with rags, and violent appetite are gone. No storms nor winds of violent force are raging there, nor does frost cover earth with frozen dew. No cloud above the plains is stretching out its fleece, no water drops from swirling mist above, although a spring within it called “the spring of life”— clear, gentle, plentiful with pleasant waters, and flowing monthly during every season— refreshes the whole forest with floodwater. There grows a type of tree here with a stately trunk arion 27.3 winter 2020 2 on a bird, the phoenix that bears mild fruit that will not fall to earth. A mateless bird, the phoenix, haunts these forest groves— mateless because she lives renewed by death. A noted acolyte, she serves and follows Phoebus, a duty Mother Nature gave to her. When yellow-tinged Aurora reddens on her rise as she dispels the stars with rosy light, the phoenix dips her flesh in holy waves twelve times; twelve times she sips the water’s vital flow. She soars and perches on the highest of the treetops, the one location that observes it all, and, turning for the start of Phoebus being born, awaits the coming of his brilliant rays, and when the sun has struck the incandescent gate, and the first glinting light has flashed its gold, she starts to pour out melodies of sacred songs and summon daylight in amazing tones that neither flutes nor warbles of the nightingales can match with rhythms of Parnassian music (and do not think the dying swan can mimic it— or the Arcadian lyre’s dulcet strings!). Once Phoebus sends his horses on a path to Heaven and travels freely, crossing all the world, she claps three times by flapping wings repeatedly and—with her fire-lord praised three times—she calms, yet all the while she marks the fleeting hours both night and day with indescribable strange sounds. This priestess of the grove and oracle of woods, sole witness, Phoebus, to your mysteries, as she departs a thousand years of life by now and epochs have imposed their weight on her, she leaves her sweet old forest nest in her decline so that she may return to bygone youth, and, longing for rebirth, she flees the sacred site, then seeks a world where death retains control. She steers a rapid flight to Syria, to which Lactantius 3 she gave its former name, “Phoenicia,” and searches lonely deserts for the sacred grove here where it lurks within the distant woods. She then selects a lofty palm with its high crown, which takes its Greek name “Phoenix” from the bird, upon which no attacking animal can pounce— no slimy snake nor any bird of prey. Aeolus then confines the winds to arching caves so gusts do not disrupt the gleaming air or clotted clouds on southern winds repel the rays of sun in empty sky and harm the bird. Once there she builds herself a cradle (or a tomb) because she dies to live, yet spawns herself. She harvests here the scents and saps of fruitful trees, which Syrians and wealthy Arabs reap, which pygmy realms, Sabaean land, or India produce within a gentle, rounded valley. She...