If he be addict to vice,

Quickly him they will entice;
If to women he be bent,

They have him at commandement :
But if Fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown;
They that fawn'd on him before
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep :
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee does bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.

THE PHOENIX AND THE

TURTLE

INTRODUCTION

6

The Phoenix and the Turtle appeared, with Shakespeare's name appended, among 'Diverse Poeticall Essaies' which were contributed by the best and chiefest of our moderne writers' to bring to a close Robert Chester's volume, Loves Martyr: or Rosalins Complaint, 1601 (edited for 'The New Shakspere Society' in 1878 by Dr. Grosart). Ben Jonson, Chapman, and Marston contributed to the volume pieces on the same theme, consecrated to the love and merite of the true-noble Knight, Sir John Salisburie,' one of Queen Elizabeth's Esquires of the body', to whom Chester dedicated his obscure and tedious poem. I may be permitted here to reproduce words of my own prefixed to an edition of The Poems and Sonnets of Shakspere', 1903: The Phoenix and the Turtle, taken out of its original environment, seems hardly intelligible, but studied in situ, the general significance becomes clear. Love's Martyr: or Rosalins Complaint, a long, an incoherent, and a dull poem, professedly, but not really, a translation from the Italian. tells of the chaste love of a phoenix, who represents a woman, and a turtle, who represents a man; they are consumed in the flames of the Arabian pyre, and from their ashes arises a new phoenix-perfect Love. The theme was proposed, perhaps by Chester, to several poets of eminence, Marston, Chapman, Ben Jonson, Shakspere, and they were willing, if not for hire (which one writer repudiates) yet in honour of Sir John Salisbury, . . . to make their several contributions to this strange volume.

The

hypothesis of Dr. Grosart, that the phoenix is Elizabeth, and the turtle Essex, seems to me to be without the slenderest foundation. Shakspere, like his fellow-poets, endeavours to do justice to the prescribed theme; his general intention is to celebrate the decease of two chaste lovers, who were perfectly united in an ideal passion; but he omits one motive of which Marston makes much-the birth of the new phoenix, ideal Love, from the ashes of the chaste and impassioned birds. If actual persons were allegorized, it must not be assumed that the fiery transmutation typifies death in the literal sense of the word.'