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Category Archives: Mythology

The Eastern Church: Intuition vs Reason

20 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by michelinewalker in Mythology, The Eastern Church

≈ Comments Off on The Eastern Church: Intuition vs Reason

Tags

Anamnesis (philosophy), East-West Schism, Intuition, Knowledge within us, Mysticism, Noetic, Sergei Rachmaninoff, St. Augustine of Hippo, the Original Sin, Theoria

Michelangelo‘s painting of the sin of Adam and Eve from the Sistine Chapel ceiling (Wiki2.org.)

Anamnesis

bold letters are mine, except anamnesis

I may have used the word anamnesis in an earlier post. Human beings have created mythologies in an attempt to make sense of their origin and their human condition. We are mere mortals. (See Christian Mythology, Wiki2.org.)

“In philosophy, anamnesis is a concept in Plato‘s epistemological and psychological theory that he develops in his dialogues Meno and Phaedo, and alludes to in his  Phaedrus.”

“It is the idea that humans possess innate knowledge (perhaps acquired from birth) and that learning consists of rediscovering that knowledge within us.”

Mythologies: the Fall

There are links between mythologies, which suggests a cross-cultural knowledge “within us.” The flood is one. However, the more frequent link is the theory of a fall from a more perfect state to a less perfect state, a fall we remember. John Milton’s Paradise Lost  (1667) is Christian Mythology. So is Alphonse de Lamartine‘s L’Homme:

Borné dans sa nature, infini dans ses vœux,
L’homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux[.]
[Limited in his nature, infinite in his wishes,
Man is a fallen god who remembers heaven.]

In Greek mythology, as used by Jean Racine in Phèdre (Phædra), first performed in 1677, Phèdre is descended from Helios, god of the Sun, but her mother is Pasiphaë, who gave birth to the Minotaur, the son of a bull. Phasiphaë has sinned. Her husband, Minos, king of Crete, keeps the Minotaur in the Cretan Labyrinth, built by Dædalus. Ariadne falls in love with Theseus and gives him a thread and a sword. He kills the Minotaur and leaves the labyrinth using the thread. Theseus does not marry Ariadne, he marries Phèdre, Ariadne’s sister and Pasiphaë’s daughter. But Phèdre, Pasiphaë’s daughter, falls in love with Hippolytus, Theseus’ son by Antiope, an Amazon, and she cannot control her feelings. Phèdre reflects the influence Jansenism exerted on Jean Racine. (See Phèdre, Wiki2.org.)

Jean Racine’s tragedy is based on Greek mythology, but Racine had been exposed to Jansenism. According to Jansenists, human beings were predestined to be saved or suffer the torments of hell. Augustine of Hippo‘s harsh view of the consequences of the Original Sin led to a heresy, Jansenism, which throws light on Phèdre’s powerlessness, but does not make Saint Augustine a lesser theologian and father of the Christian Church. He is the author of the The City of God, On Christian Doctrine and, especially, his Confessions. He had been a sinner, but converted at the age of 31.

The Original Sin

  • the Western Church
  • the Eastern Church

In both the Eastern and Western Churches, and in Judaism, Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, which is the Original Sin. It led to their removal from the  Garden of Eden, or Paradise. They became mere mortals, which is called the human condition. In the Western Church, humans beings are born guilty of the Original Sin.

However, the Eastern Church proposes more lenient consequences to Adam and Eve’s sin. Adam and Eve sinned, which is the first or original sin, but it does not mean that individual human beings are born guilty of the original sin and must be rushed to the baptismal font.

Matters are changing. Today “[b]oth East and West hold that each person is not called to atone for the actual sin committed by Adam and Eve.”
(See East-West Schism,Original sin, free will and the Immaculate Conception, Wiki2.org.)

The Conversion of St. Augustine by Fra Angelico (Wiki2.org.)

Augustine of Hippo

Concerning the Original Sin, one may wish to read Saint Augustine and the Original Sin.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430 CE) was not translated into Greek until the 14th century, the 1300’s. The Christian Byzantine Empire was a Greek-language Empire.

“His works were not translated into Greek until the 14th century; as such, he had little or no influence on mainstream Orthodox thought until 17th century Ukraine and 18th century Russia, primarily through the influence of western clergy and the establishment of theological schools which relied on Latin models with respect to curricula, text books, etc.”

(See Saint Augustine and the Original Sin)

One may argue that Greek-speaking Christians who convened at the First Council of Nicaea, in 325 CE, and convened again at the Council of Constantinople (the former Byzantium), in 381 CE, both ecumenical, may have known Latin, but Saint Augustine lived between 354 and 430 CE.

“The Eastern Church makes no use at all of Augustine. Another Orthodox view is expressed by Christos Yannaras, who described Augustine as ‘the fount of every distortion and alteration in the Church’s truth in the West’.”
(See East-Schism, Original sin, free will and the Immaculate Conception, Wiki2.org)

The East-West Schism of 1054 occurred, if not 729 (from 325 CE) years, at least 673 years (from 381), after the Christian Church was founded at the First Council of Nicaea and the Council of  Constantinople.

 “Rome must not require more from the East than had been formulated and what was lived in the first millennium.” (Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI)
(See East-West Schism, Theological reconciliation, Wiki2.org.)

It should also be noted that the Western Church wanted Mary to be born untainted to the extent of making the Immaculate Conception a dogma in 1854. In 1854, Pope Pius IX, using papal infallibility, or ex cathedra issued papal bull Ineffabilis Deus, making the  Immaculate Conception a doctrine or dogma-

On 1st November 1950, by exercising papal infallibility, Pope Pius XII issued the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus making the Assumption of Mary an article of faith, or doctrine, or dogma.

The Eastern Church rejected the Immaculate Conception. It would not be a dogma until 1854, but it was a rationalization.

“These doctrinal issues center around the Orthodox perception that the Catholic theologians lack the actual experience of God called theoria and thereby fail to understand the importance of the heart as a noetic or intuitive faculty.”
(See East-West Schism, Theological Reconciliation (Wiki2.org.)

Similarly, The Five (composers) attempted to compose distinct Russian music, an Eastern music. They composed superb music, but what they expressed was a “knowledge within them.” So their endeavour was an anamnesis. They were using the “intuitive faculty.”

As  noted in my last post, “[a] major event of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), was the issuance by Pope Paul and Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople of the Catholic–Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965.”

This has been seen as good will on the part of both the Eastern and Western Churches. After a millenium, going further may not be a realistic goal.

“Catholics [Christians] accept as valid the Eastern Orthodox intuitive [“knowledge within us”] and mystical understanding of God and consider it complementary to the rational Western reflection.”
(See East-West Schism, cannot locate, Wiki 2.org.)

Although the Western Church’s repertoire of liturgical music contains masterpieces of spirituality, the Eastern Church is the richer source of music reflecting an “intuitive and mystical understanding of God,” “innate knowledge.”

—ooo—

Blaise Pascal wrote a famous pensée (thought):

Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point[.]
[The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.]

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Silent Night (Silkannthreads (21 December 2018)
  • Church’s Theotokos (12 January 2019)
  • Jean Racine’s Cantique, by Gabriel Fauré (9 May 2014)
  • Phèdre’s “Hidden God” (8 October 2012)
  • Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré & Alexandre Cabanel: a Canticle (6 October 2012)

Sources and Resources

  • Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions is a Wikisource publication
  • Jean Racine’s Phèdre is a Wikisource publication
  • Phaedra is Gutenberg’s [EBook #1977]

I apologize for a rather lengthy absence. I was exhausted and had to regroup.

Love to everyone 💕

Sergei Rachmaninoff‘s Praise the Lord
performed by the USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir.

augustine_confessiones (1)

St. Augustine’s Confessions, Manuscript on vellum. Germany, first half 13th century. (Wikisource)

© Micheline Walker
19 January 2019
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The Deluge and other Amerindian Myths

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Aboriginals, Mythology

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aboriginals, Animal Ancestry, Atahocan, Deluge, Missionaries, Monotheism, Myths of the Cherokees

Myths of the Cherokees

Myths of the Cherokees (Photo credit: Gutenberg #45634)

“In Cherokee mythology, as in that of Indian tribes generally, there is no essential difference between men and animals.” (V.15, James Mooney.)

The Deluge

We have returned to the subject of Amerindians, whose tales feature a large number of animals (see 15, James Mooney). However, their “myths” also tell about a deluge.

In his Myths of the Cherokees, James Mooney published a Cherokee tale about the deluge, which I have included in this post. Amerindians to the north, Hurons, also remembered the deluge. We will look at both and mention other characteristics of Amerindians.

I should note that James Mooney’s Myths of the Cherokee is an extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1902). It is also dated 1900.

The Cherokee variant of the story of the deluge is as follows:

The Cherokee’s Deluge

A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was angry and scolded the dog, which then spoke to him and said: “Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water.” The man did not believe it, and the dog said, “If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck.” He looked and saw that the dog’s neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out.

Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions, and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountains were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing.

Myths of the Cherokee, (V.14, James Mooney)

Comment

Contrary to the Bible‘s Noah’s Ark, animals are not saved in the Cherokee tale, yet a dog can sense the impending drama and he tells at least one man, Messou, who builds a raft for himself and his family, which may be consistent with the Cherokees’ belief that men and beasts were the same. They perceived a continuum between men and beasts and therefore probable animal ancestry. (See Totemism, Wikipedia)

pl-01

In the Cherokee Mountains by James Mooney 1888 (Photo credit: Gutenberg #45634)

pl-19

On Ononaluftee River by James Mooney, 1888 (Photo credit: Gutenberg #45634)

(Links in the following paragraph take the reader to the Canadian Encyclopedia and to Wikipedia.)

The anthologie[1] used by most students of French-Canadian or Québécois literature contains excerpts from the Jesuits’ Relations (Anthologie pp. 37-89) and the writings of other missionaries. Amerindians told Paul Le Jeune, SJ (Anthologie, pp. 56-57) about the deluge and that “Messou repared the world” (“Messou répara le monde”).

The Deluge
as told to Father Le Jeune

A man called Messou went hunting with wolves (“des loups cerviers”), instead of dogs, The man learned that there was danger lurking for his wolves near a lake. While chasing an elk, he went into that very lake and his wolves followed him. They sank immediately: “ils furent abysmez en un instant.” (17th-century spelling of abîmés as in abyss).[2] The hunter came up and started looking for his “brothers,” the wolves. A bird told him that they were being kept at the bottom of the lake by beasts and monsters. The hunter jumped into the lake and it started overflowing to the point of drowning the world. He, Messou, went about repairing the world with the help of a muskrat (un rat musqué). He then avenged his wolves (ses chasseurs [hunters]) by transforming himself into all kinds of animals, inspiring fear. This “reparateur” (sic)  then married a muskrat, now une souris musquée (a mouse), and they had children who resettled (repeupler) the world.

The existence of one god: Atahocan

Paul Le Jeune (1591 – 1664), a Jesuit (Société de Jésus: SJ) also wrote that Amerindians recognized that there was a being (une nature) superior to human beings:

“mais on ne peut nier qu’ils ne recognoissent quelque nature superieure à la nature de l’homme[.]” (17th-century spelling of reconnaissent and supérieure) (Anthologie, p. 57.) 

(“but we cannot deny that they recognize some nature [that is] superior to the nature of man[.]”) (a literal translation; Anthologie, p. 57.)

According to Amerindians, the God of the Jesuits, a god who created everything, “qui a tout fait,” was Atahocan, their god, who also created everything. In other words, both Christians and Hurons believed in one God.

In The Song of Hiawatha (1855), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow‘s (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) features Hiawatha, not Manabozho.

(Images below and at the bottom of this post are courtesy of The Walters Art Museum.)

Indian Runner by Alfred Jacob Miller (Courtesy, The Walters Art Museum)
Indian Runner by Alfred Jacob Miller (Courtesy, The Walters Art Museum)
Conversing by Signs by Alfred Jacob Miller (Courtesy, The Walters Museum)
Conversing by Signs by Alfred Jacob Miller (Courtesy, The Walters Museum)
Elke Swimming the Platte by Alfred Jacob Miller
Elke Swimming the Platte by Alfred Jacob Miller
Indian Courtship by Jacob Alfred Miller
Indian Courtship by Jacob Alfred Miller

The Noble Savage

As for the concept of the “noble savage,” (le bon sauvage) it is expressed very early by Gabriel Théodat Sagard (died in 1636), who was a Récollet. You may remember that the Récollets (Franciscans) were the first missionaries sent to New France. Sagard is the author of Le Grand Voyage aux pays des Hurons (The Great/Long voyage to the country of Hurons), a Gutenberg project publication [EBook, #00]. Sagard refers to his “bons Sauvages” (Anthologie, p. 44) and tells that women have their say with respect to choosing their men.

Father Paul Le Jeune, SJ, also writes about “[t]he good things that can be found in Savages” (“Des bonnes choses qui se trouvent dans les Sauvages”) (Anthologie, p. 53). For instance, Amerindians did not get angry and were patient, which could still be the case. Le Jeune writes that he has never seen anyone so patient as a sick “Sauvage.” (See “Indian Runner” by Alfred Jacob Miller, description.)

A Sauvage, other than the Amerindians with whom Le Jeune lives, tries to steal meat. He is not punished. On the contrary, he is invited, later on, to stay with Le Jeune’s Sauvages. He goes and gets his wife, whom he has to carry because she cannot walk, his grandson, and a relative (Anthologie, pp. 53-56). Father Le Jeune also reports that Amerindians are neither ambitious nor miserly (p. 54) and that they love one another:

“Ils s’entr’aiment les uns les autres, et s’accordent admirablement bien: vous ne voyez point de disputes, de querelles, d’inimitiez, de reproches parmy eux[.]”
(17th-century French) (p. 55.)

“They love one another, and get along admirably well: one does not see disputes, quarrels, enmity and criticism [reproach] among them[.]” (a literal translation; Anthologie, p. 55.)

However, Le Jeune claims they are thankless (“ils sont ingrats”) towards strangers (étrangers) (p. 56).

Father Le Jeune is perturbed because the white man brought alcoholism (yvrognerie) to Amerindians (Anthologie, p. 53). The white often used alcohol as payment for pelts. The white man also brought smallpox (Mayo Clinic) to Amerindians.

Yet, Paul Le Jeune states that he never witnessed a truly “morally virtuous” action on the part of an Amerindian:

“et néantmoins je n’oserois asseurer que j’aye vue exercer aucun acte de vraye vertu morale à un Sauvage [.]” (17th-century French) (Anthologie, p. 56.)

“and, nevertheless, I would not dare say for certain that I ever saw a Savage   perform any truly morally virtuous act[.]”

Pierre Biard, who was a Jesuit missionary to Acadie, compares the new world to both Paradise and a desert: Bel Eden [garden of Eden], pitoyable désert) (Beautiful Paradise, pitiful desert) (Anthologie, p. 37).

Comments

Note that Father Le Jeune remains a missionary, which may explain why he claims not to have seen an Amerindian perform a truly morally virtuous act. What does he mean?

For the missionaries to New France, Huguenots, French Calvinists, were greater pagans than the Sauvages. Pierre du Gua de Monts (1568 – 1628), who founded the first permanent settlement in Canada, was a Huguenot, which he did not conceal. Champlain, who travelled with him, was also a French Protestant, but he did not tell. Huguenots left New France, or converted to Catholicism, when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes (30 April 1598), an edict of tolerance. It was revoked by virtue of the Edict of Fontainebleau (22 October 1685).

Death Ceremonials

Hurons had a Festin des âmes, a feast for the dead (Anthologie, pp. 65-72). Jean de Brébeuf met an Amerindian who removed and kept the brain of the dead and another Amerindian who went to fetch his dead sister. The man who had removed his fellow Amerindian’s sister’s brain told him to come by once he had found his sister. She seemed to be resuscitating, but she died again (Anthologie, pp. 63-65). This Amerindian was a Huron (Wyandot), who were friends of the French.

Brébeuf and seven other missionaries were tortured to death during hostilities between the Hurons and the Iroquois. The Iroquois were allies of the British. (See Canadian Martyrs, Wikipedia.)

Shapeshifting

After Messou repaired the world, he avenged his wolves by transforming himself into all kinds of animals, which is shapeshifting. Loup-Garou (werewolf) stories were quite common in Quebec.

Interestingly, shapeshifting occurs in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses (1st century CE) Apuleius‘ The Golden Ass (2nd century CE) and it also occurs in fairy tales and legends (the Werewolf [lycantrophy]). In the Golden Ass, it takes place in a remarkable digression, the tale of Cupid and Psyche.

We have also encountered metamorphoses in Beauty and the Beast and Puss in Boots as well as in fables.

Modern examples are the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894: aged 44) and a 1915 novella, Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis), by Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924: aged 40).

We have seen therefore that Amerindians:

  • remembered a deluge;
  • that they believed in one god who made everything: Atohacan;
  • that the Hurons had virtues—they did not get angry; they were patient; they were not ambitious nor were they greedy;
  • that they honoured the dead;
  • that Cherokees believed men and beast did not differ (“the dog, which then spoke to him and said” [Cherokee deluge]);
  • that Hurons thought they could bring the dead back to life;
  • that they shared shapeshifting myths with the white.

Conclusion

Aarne, Thompson and Üther, as well as other folklorists and ethnologists, have seen variants of the same tale from country to country. Tales are shaped by culture and cultures, by elements such as the climate. However, it would be my opinion that shared myths may also be the product of the human mind and of human needs that are independent of culture.

For instance, the figure of the trickster seems to cross borders, except that he is a fox in Europe and a rabbit or a coyote in North America. He seems an archetype, or function. Moreover, tricksters everywhere may be “hoisted by their own petard.”

Some missionaries saw a degree of nobility in Amerindians, which led to the development of the notion of the Noble Savage (le bon Sauvage). French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau‘s Indes galantes (1735) portrays bons Sauvages. He had seen real Amerindians dance. Rameau was a superb composer of music for ballet.

I will close this post by emphasizing that trickster tales are common in Amerindian lore but that etiological (“pourquoi”) tales seem equally important. So are creation myths. The story of the deluge is shared by many tribes. Manabozho, an Ojibwa, experiences a deluge which he is able to repair, he can “make the land.” Moreover, there is a legend about Manabozho in which he can transform himself into what seems like the trunk of a tree. A snake wants to know whether or not the trunk is a trunk, so he squeezes it. Despite the pain, Manabozho remains quiet.[3]

So we will now have a brief look at the Song of Hiawatha, and, perhaps, totemism.

Kindest regards to all of you. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Collecting Amerindian Folklore (17 August 2015)
  • Cupid and Psyche or Magical Realism (7 August 2013)
  • Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Les Indes galantes” (25 September 2012)
  • William Christie: a Performance of “Les Indes galantes” (25 September 2012)
  • Beauty and the Beast (11 November 2011)
  • Puss in Boots (9 November 2011)

Sources and Resources

  • James Mooney: Myths of the Cherokee
  • 15, James Mooney, list and description of animals found in Amerindian tales
  • Gabriel Sagard: Le Grand Voyage au pays des Hurons is Gutenberg [EBook, #00]

____________________

[1] Gilles Marcotte, direction, Anthologie de la littérature québécoise (Montréal : L’Hexagone, 1994), Volume 1.

[2] In this instance, abîmer means: to damage, but un abîme is an abyss, as in mise en abyme/abîme.

[3] R. C. Armour (illust.) North American Indian Fairy Tales: Folklore and Legends (London: Gibbings and Company, Limited) (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1905) (Kessinger Legacy Reprints)

Grigory Sokolov plays Rameau’s Les Sauvages (an encore)

798px-Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Pierre_-_Walters_37194053© Micheline Walker
21 August 2015
WordPress

“Pierre”
by Jacob Alfred Miller

45.403816 -71.938314

Micheline's Blog

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The Phoenix: on the Importance of Symbols & Myths

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Bestiaries, Medieval Bestiary, Mythology, Myths, Symbols and Emblems

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Aberdeen Bestiary, Ave Phœnice, Évangéline, Job, Lactantius, legengary animals, mythology, myths, pays de Québec, symbols and emblems

Phoenix_detail_from_Aberdeen_Bestiary
“The Phœnix,” The Aberdeen Bestiary
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
 

Aberdeen Bestiary

If the myth of the phœnix did not exist, we would probably invent it. Mythical and legencreatures are usually born of a human need, which, in this case, is the need for rebirth. Moreover, given that the Phœnix is a transcultural and nearly universal figure, we can presume that the need for rebirth is widely and profoundly rooted in the human imagination.

Our phœnix is the mythical singing bird that is reborn from its ashes. It [le phénix] is associated with a 170 elegiac-verse poem written by Lucius Cæcilius  Fiminature  Lactantius, an early Christian author (c. 240 – c. 320) and an advisor to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine I. The Ave Phœnice is about the death and rebirth of a mythical bird, a bird that rises from its own ashes. This poem was retold in English as The Phœnix, an anonymous Old English poem composed of 677 lines, based on Lactantius’s Ave Phœnice.

Given that the phœnix rises from its ashes, it constitutes a powerful symbol that one can associate with survival, as is the case with Évangéline and Maria Chapdelaine’s mythic “pays de Québec.” The phœnix is a source of hope to the inhabitants of lands decimated by wars or natural disasters. As a symbol of rebirth, the phœnix also brings hope to those who, like Job, who have lost everything. This is how it appears in the Hebrew Bible:

 I thought I would end my days with my family/ And be as long-lived as the phœnix. (Job.29:18) [i]

Mythical, Mythological and Legendary Animals

Because of his features, the phœnix is a zoomorphic. It combines features borrowed from other animals. Given that he is not a real animal, one is tempted to call it a mythical creature, but it appears in the Bible, and Greek mythology. Mythological figures have ancestors and descendants, or a lineage, which can hardly be the case with the immortal phœnix. However, given that it can rise from its ashes and is therefore immortal and godlike, the phœnix is a more powerful symbol than the dragon, the unicorn, the griffin, creatures that lack a lineage, or mostly so. See List of Legendary Creatures, Wikipedia)

In beast literature, he is zoomorphic in that he combines features borrowed from many animals, except obviously human features. Remember that Machiavelli’s centaur was half human and half horse. Our phœnix is an animal, albeit legendary.

In Greece, the phœnix (purple) was an “Arabian bird, the only one of its kind, which according to Greek legend lives a certain number of years, at the end of which it makes a nest of spices, sings a melodious dirge, flaps its wings to set fire to the pile, burns itself to ashes and comes forth with new life.”[ii]

The Phœnix (Photo credit: Bestiary.ca)

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica “in ancient Egypt and in Classical antiquity, [the phœnix] was a fabulous bird associated with the worship of the sun. The Egyptian phœnix was said to be as large as an eagle, with brilliant scarlet and gold plumage and a melodious cry.[iii] Besides, it had a life span of no less than 500 years and “[a]s its end approached, the phœnix fashioned a nest of aromatic boughs and spices, set it on fire, and was consumed in the flames. From the pyre miraculously sprang a new phœnix, which, after embalming its father’s ashes in an egg of myrrh, flew with the ashes to Heliopolis (“City of the Sun”) in Egypt, where it deposited them on the altar in the temple of the Egyptian god of the sun, Re.”[iv] The Egyptian phœnix symbolized immortality.

Phœnix depicted in the book of mythological creatures by F. J. Bertuch (1747-1822) (Photo credit: Wikipadia)

In Islamic mythology the phœnix was identified with the ‘anqā,’ also a bird, but one that “became a plague and was killed.”[v]

Fantasy Literature and elsewhere

The phœnix was used by J. K. Rowling in the fifth book of the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phœnix, 2003. It is also featured in Jean de La Fontaine, “Le  Corbeau et le Renart,” (Book I.2), or the “Raven and the Fox,” where the Fox tells the crow that because of its beautiful voice, he is a phœnix among the guests of forests:  “Vous êtes le phénix des hôtes de ces bois.”  In French, blackmail is translated by le chantage. The fox makes the corbeau sing and the cheese drops.

Even the ageless Cinderella narrative has phœnix-like dimensions. The word Cinderella (Cendrillon) is derived from ashes: cinders and cendres. Through the mediation of her fairy godmother, the ash-girl, reduced to that role by jealous sisters and a mean stepmother, a second wife, becomes the princess of fairy tales.

Christian Symbolism

Moreover, we cannot leave aside the phœnix as a Christian symbol. For Christians, the immortal bird represents the resurrection of Christ. On the third day, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead as the phœnix rises from his ashes. In the liturgical year, Christians go from Ash Wednesday to the Resurrection: Easter.

Mere Mortals

We cannot escape death as we are mere mortals, but life is nevertheless perpetuated.  Outside my window there are naked trees, but they will again be adorned. And even if one’s land is a paper land, a literary homeland, that too is a land. In 1889-1890, Henri-Raymond Casgrain, the author of Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline was President of the Royal Society of Canada and therefore lucid. Yet there is no “real” Évangéline. She was created by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in 1847.

The manner in which humanity copes with its condition often leads to mythification and once the myth is in place, it can be as real and powerful as is Évangéline to Acadians and her “pays de Québec” to Maria Chapdelaine.

 

Phoenix, from Aberdeen Bestiary


[i] Donald Ray Schwartz, Noah’s Ark: an Annotated Encyclopedia of Every Animal Species in the Hebrew Bible (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 2000), p. 400, p. 405, pp. 408-409.

[ii] “phœnix,” in Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, revised by Adrian Room (London: Cassel House, 2001[1959]).

[iii] “phœnix.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/457189/phoenix>.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

composer: Igor Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971)
piece: “The Firebird”  first performed for Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballets Russes (1910)
performers:  Vienna Philharmonic (Salzburg Festival, 2000) 
conductor: Valery Gergiev
photograph: Igor Stravinsky
 

Igor Stravinsky©Micheline Walker
1 February 2012
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