In an earlier post, I mentioned that Pierre Séguier owned the French collection (Paris) of the Oxford-Paris-Londres Bible. Pierre Séguier was one of a handful of individuals who ruled France in the seventeenth century. He purchased the Paris selection of the Bible moralisée. However, he also conducted the trial of Nicolas Fouquet, France’s Superintendant of Finances (1653-1661). (See RELATED ARTICLES.)
In the same post, I described our four Bibles as paradox literature. That paragraph is no longer part of my post. I may have erased it mistakenly or it may have been removed. It could wait. Paradox literature is defined as follows:
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition and analysis that involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.
Yes, there is a paradox. God used an instrument that man would create: the compass. The artists who illuminated the Creation depicted tools that would make sense to their contemporaries, not to mention the artists themselves. In fact, these examples showed that man was creative. God Himself had to be recognizable. The four depictions of God we have seen could be understood by the humblest among us. Northrop Frye writes that:
Present things are related to past things in such a way that cognition becomes the same thing as re-cognition, awareness that a present effect is a past cause in another form.
Northrop Frye [2]
So, we have created myths, stories (mythoi) of causality.
_________________________ [1] Rescher, Nicholas. Paradoxes:Their Roots, Range, and Resolution. Open Court: Chicago, 2001. [2] Northrop Frye, Creation and Recreation (University of Toronto Press, 1980), p. 59.
Love to everyone 💕
Haydn: Die Schöpfung Hob. XXI:2 / Erster Teil – 1A. Einleitung: “Die Vorstellung des Chaos”
If the myth of the phœnix did not exist, we would probably invent it. Mythical creatures 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 CæciliusFiminatureLactantius, 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 and Mythological Animals
Although it appears in the Bible, I am tempted to consider the phœnix as a mythical rather than mythological figure. 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, this distinction may be rather artificial and insignificant. In other words, whether mythical or mythological, the phœnix is a more powerful symbol than the dragon, the unicorn and the griffin, creatures that also lack a lineage, or mostly so.
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]
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.
Phoenix depicted in the book of mythological creatures by F. J. Bertuch (1747-1822).
In Islamicmythology 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, it 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 narrativehas 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 quite 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]).
I have used this song in an earlier post on Jean Racine and his Phèdre (1677) entitled Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré & Alexandre Cabanel: a Canticle. Phèdre is a dramatic tragedy, in five acts, written in alexandrine verse (twelve syllables). It was first performed on 1 January 1677 (see Phèdre, Wikipedia). Racine’s Cantique is not part of Phèdre, perhaps the best known of Racine’s tragedies and, officially, his last play.
Racine’s Phèdre is about love and jealousy. In certain seventeenth-century works of literature, jealousy is the feeling that reveals one is “in love.” Love is therefore looked upon as dangerous, because jealousy can be an extremely painful feeling. The foremost literary expression of this phenomenon is Madame de la Fayette‘s novel entitled La Princesse de Clèves, published anonymously in 1678. It is considered a masterpiece of Western literature.
This post is not about Phèdre, except indirectly. I am using images related to Racine’s Phèdre, whose plays, tragedies, are rooted in Greco-Latin models or mythology. However, Racine’s tragedies usually convey a meaning not entirely intended in the Greco-Roman “model.” Moreover, Racine’s plays are examples of works of literature that were considered as well written as their source. The literary maturity of seventeenth-century French literature triggered the famous Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. As we neared the end of the seventeenth century, many claimed that the modern work of literature was at least as fine as the Greco-Latin “model,” which was often the case.
On Jean Racine
Corneille
Racine
Molière
Jean Racine is one of the most prominent dramatists in French literature. He lived during the seventeenth century, the age of Pierre Corneille (6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684), best known for Le Cid (1637) and Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), one of the “greatest masters of comedy in Western literature,” (baptized 15 January 1622 – d.17 February 1673). (See Molière, Wikipedia.)
A Canticle
Jean Racine‘s Cantique is a translation and a paraphrase (a rewording) of an earlier text. Set to Gabriel Fauré‘s music, it nearly becomes what the romantics, nineteenth-century authors, artists, musicians and critics, would call the “sublime.” Gabriel Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) set Racine’s Cantique to music when he was nineteen-years old.
A canticle is a song of praise taken from biblical texts other than the Psalms (Wikipedia). Magnificats, hymns of praise, are canticles. Racine’s text is a translation and a paraphrase of Consors paterni luminis. It is part of Racine’s Hymnes traduites du Bréviaire romain (Hymns Translated from the Roman Breviary), published in 1688.
The Images
I have recycled images used in my posts on Racine’s Phèdre. Phèdre’s husband slew the Minotaur, the offspring of Pasiphaë, Minos’ wife, and a bull. The Minotaur’s father may be the Sacred Bull. The Bible’s Golden Calf is an example of the worship of bulls, calfs and cows. Pictured below is the Bull of Knossos, or the Cretan Bull. The Minotaur‘s mother is Pasiphaë, Phèdre’s and Ariadne’s mother. The Minotaur was slain by Theseus, Phèdre’s husband, who used Ariadne thread to find his way to the Minotaur through the labyrinth built by Daedalus, who crafted sadly-remembered wings for his son Icarus.
However, let us focus on Gabriel Fauré’s (op. 11) musical setting of the canticle translated by Racine. Bulls will be discussed elsewhere. They were worshipped in Egypt, so it’s a long story.
By and large, we no longer worship bulls and bull-leaping is antiquated, but we do have bullies a-plenty.
Best regards to all of you: my family!
Fresco of bull-leaping from Knossos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Verbe égal au Très-Haut, notre unique espérance,
Jour éternel de la terre et des cieux,
De la paisible nuit nous rompons le silence :
Divin sauveur, jette sur nous les yeux.
Répands sur nous le feu de ta grâce puissante ;
Que tout l’enfer fuie au son de ta voix ;
Dissipe le sommeil d’une âme languissante
Qui la conduit à l’oubli de tes lois !
Ô Christ ! sois favorable à ce peuple fidèle,
Pour te bénir maintenant assemblé ;
Reçois les chants qu’il offre à ta gloire immortelle,
Et de tes dons qu’il retourne comblé.
—ooo—
Word of God, one with the Most High,
in Whom alone we have our hope,
Eternal Day of heaven and earth,
We break the silence of the peaceful night;
Saviour Divine, cast your eyes upon us!
Pour on us the fire of your powerful grace,
That all hell may flee at the sound of your voice;
Banish the slumber of a weary soul,
That brings forgetfulness of your laws!
O Christ, look with favour upon your faithful people
Now gathered here to praise you;
Receive their hymns offered to your immortal glory;
May they go forth filled with your gifts.
For translations of the “Cantique” in languages other than English, please click on translations. You will find the original Latin text in Wikipedia’s entry on Cantique de Jean Racine (Fauré).
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 FiminatureLactantius, 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]
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 narrativehas 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]).
© Micheline Walker
9 May 2014
Micheline's Blog 