Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art Part 14

Vittoria Colonna (+ 1547) the beautiful and accomplished wife of the Marquis of Pescara, used the device of a phnix on her medal.

Mary Queen of Scots used the impress of her mother, Mary of Lorraine, a phnix in flames, and the motto: "En ma fin est mon commencement." A phnix in flames upon a castle was the badge of Queen Jane Seymour, the crest of the Seymours being a phnix in flames issuing from a ducal coronet. Her son, Edward VI., added the motto, "Nascatur ut alter" ("That another may be born"), alluding to the nature of her death. She lies buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with a Latin epitaph by Bishop G.o.dwin, which has been thus translated by his son Morgan:

"Here a phnix lieth, whose death To another phnix gave birth.

It is to be lamented much The world at once ne'er knew two such."

Queen Elizabeth placed a phnix upon her medals and tokens with her favourite motto: "Semper eadem" ("Always the same"), and sometimes with the motto "Sola phnix omnis mundi" ("The sole phnix of the whole world"); and on the other side, "Et Angliae gloria" ("And the glory of England"), with her portrait full-faced. By the poets of the time, Elizabeth was often compared to the phnix. Sylvester, in his "Corona Dedicatoria," says:

"As when the Arabian (only) bird doth burne Her aged bodie in sweet flames to death, Out of her cinders a new bird hath birth, On whom the beauties of the first return; From spicy ashes of the sacred urne Of our dead phnix (deare Elizabeth) A new true phnix lively flourisheth."

And Shakespeare, in the prophecy which he puts into the mouth of Cranmer at the baptism of the Princess Elizabeth, her great and glorious reign is foreshadowed, and finally:

"... as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phnix, Her ashes new create another heir, As great in admiration as herself."

Shakespeare elsewhere uses the simile to denote a phnix among women--a phnix, a paragon, unique, because alone of its kind:

"If she be furnished with a mind so rare, She is alone the Arabian bird."

_Cymbeline_, Act i. sc. 7.

Many other heraldic mottoes have been a.s.sociated with this celebrated device. The following are from "Historic Devices, Badges," &c., by Mrs.

Bury Palliser:

Eleanor, Queen of Francis I. of Austria: "Non est similis illi"

("There is none like her"). She afterwards changed her motto, either showing how much she was neglected, or to express her determination to remain single: "Unica semper avis" ("Always a solitary bird").

Bona of Savoy: "Sola facta solum deum sequor."

Cardinal Trent: "Ut vivat" ("That it may live").

Linacre: "Vivat post funera virtus" ("Virtue survives death").

"De mi muerte ma vida" ("From my death my life").

"De mort a vie" ("From death to life").

"Et morte vitam protulit" ("And by death has prolonged his life").

"Ex morte, immortalitas" ("Out of death, immortality").

"Murio y nacio" ("I die and am born").

"Ne pereat" ("That it should not perish").

"O mors, ero mors tua" ("O death, I shall be thy death").

"Se necat ut vivat" ("Slays himself that he may live").

"Trouva sol nei tormenti il suo gioire" ("It finds alone its joy in its suffering").

"Vivre pour mourir, mourir pour vivre" ("Live to die, die to live").

"Uror, morior, orior" ("I am burnt, I die, I arise").

The phnix in heraldry is never represented in other than in one position, _rising from flames_, that is, with expanded wings and enveloped in flames of fire in which it is being consumed. It is usually represented exactly as an eagle in shape, but may be of any of the heraldic tinctures.

The phnix is of frequent use in heraldry, and borne by many families in the United Kingdom. A phnix issuing from a ducal coronet is the crest of the Duke of Somerset.

Linacre, founder of the College of Physicians, and honorary physician to four sovereigns has on his tomb in Westminster Abbey the device of the phnix, with the motto, "Vivat post funera virtus" ("Virtue survives death").

From the a.s.sociation of this fabulous bird with alchemy, Paracelsus wrote concerning it, and several alchemists employed it to symbolise their vocation. It was adopted by the Apothecaries' Company as crest, and is a frequent sign over chemists' shops.

_A phnix in flames proper, gorged with a mural coronet_, is the allusive crest of the Fenwicks; the motto over the crest is the _cri de guerre_, "A Fenwick! a Fenwick!" They were a family noted in border warfare. "The house of Percy," says Mrs. Bury Palliser, "ever ranked the Fenwicks among the most valiant of its retainers, and in border warfare the banner of the gorged phnix in the burning flame always appeared with that of the silver crescent of the Percys."

The bird of paradise is interesting as having for a time been accepted as the veritable phnix, a fact which has escaped Gibbon. That luxurious Emperor, Heliogabalus, having eaten, as he thought, of every known delicacy, bethought him one day of the fabled phnix. What mattered it that only one bird existed at a time; _that one_, the imperial gourmand must have, and was inconsolable that he had not thought of it before. The zeal of proconsuls was equal to the great occasion, and from all parts of the earth came strange and wondrous birds, each affirmed with confidence to be "the sacred solitary bird, that knows no second, knows no third."

The cankerworm of doubt remains! At last, one day there was brought to Rome from the far islands of the Eastern seas a bird, the like of which for the glory of its plumage had never been seen out of paradise, the veritable phnix, "Bird of the Sun!" The sight of the magnificent creature carried conviction with it. Heliogabalus ate in faith, and went to his fathers contented.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Harpy, wings disclosed.]

The Harpy

"_Of monsters all, most monstrous this; no greater wrath G.o.d sends 'mongst men; it comes from depth of pitchy h.e.l.l: And virgin's face, but womb like gulf unsatiate hath, Her hands are griping claws, her colour pale and fell._"

VIRGIL.

"_Thou art like the harpy, Which to betray, doth wear an angel's face, Seize with an eagle's talons._"

"Pericles Prince of Tyre," Act iv. sc. 4.

A poetical monstrosity of cla.s.sical origin, described as "winged creatures having the head and b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a woman, and the body and limbs of a vulture; very fierce and loathsome, living in an atmosphere of filth and stench, and contaminating anything which they come near. Pale and emaciated, they were continually tormented with insatiable hunger." They are best known from the story of the Argonauts, where they appear as the tormentors of the blind king Phineus, whose table they robbed of its viands, which they either devoured or spoiled. They were regarded by the ancients as ministers of sudden death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Harpy, Greek sculpture.]

In Miss Millington's admirable book, "Heraldry in History, Poetry and Romance," it is stated that unlike the generality of such mythical beings, the harpies appear originally, as in Homer's "Odyssey," as persons instead of personations; while later authors for the most part reduced them to whirlwinds and whirlpools. Homer mentions but one harpy. Hesiod gives two, later writers three. The names indicate that these monsters were impersonations of whirlwinds and storms. The names were: _Ocypeta_ (rapid), _Celeno_ (blackness), _Aello_ (storm).

"I will ... do any emba.s.sage ... rather than Hold three words' conference with this harpy."

_Much Ado About Nothing_, Act ii. sc. 1.

"Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Performed, my Ariel; a grace it had devouring."

_Tempest_, Act iii. sc. 3.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Harpy displayed and crowned. German version.]

_Azure, a harpy with her wings disclosed, her hair flotant, or, armed of the same._ This coat existed in Huntingdon Church in Guillam's time.

The arms of the City of Nuremberg are: _azure, a harpy displayed armed, crined and crowned, or_. It occurs as the city device as early as 1243. In German heraldry it is termed _jungfraundler_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Shield of Nuremberg.]