Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, provides the following account of the phoenix: In the fragment, the wise centaur Chiron tells a young hero Achilles the following, describing the phoenix's lifetime as 972 times the length of a long-lived human's:Ī chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men,Īnd a raven's life makes three stags old,Ĭlassical discourse on the subject of the phoenix attributes a potential origin of the phoenix to Ancient Egypt. Early texts Įxterior to the Linear B mention above from Mycenaean Greece, the earliest clear mention of the phoenix in ancient Greek literature occurs in a fragment of the Precepts of Chiron, attributed to 8th-century BC Greek poet Hesiod. So phoenix may mean "the Phoenician bird" or "the purplish-red bird". The word Phoenician appears to be from the same root, meaning "those who work with red dyes". That word is probably a borrowing from a West Semitic word for madder, a red dye made from Rubia tinctorum. The Greek word is first attested in the Mycenaean Greek po-ni-ke, which probably meant " griffin", though it might have meant "palm tree". The Latin word comes from Greek φοῖνιξ phoinīx. In time, the word developed specialized use in the English language: For example, the term could refer to an "excellent person" (12th century), a variety of heraldic emblem (15th century), and the name of a constellation (17th century). This borrowing was later reinforced by French influence, which had also borrowed the Latin noun. The word first entered the English language by way of a borrowing of Latin phoenīx into Old English ( fenix). The modern English word phoenix entered the English language from Latin, later reinforced by French. Some scholars have claimed that the poem De ave phoenice may present the mythological phoenix motif as a symbol of Christ's resurrection. Over time, extending beyond its origins, the phoenix could variously "symbolize renewal in general as well as the sun, time, the Empire, metempsychosis, consecration, resurrection, life in the heavenly Paradise, Christ, Mary, virginity, the exceptional man, and certain aspects of Christian life". Over time the phoenix motif spread and gained a variety of new associations Herodotus, Lucan, Pliny the Elder, Pope Clement I, Lactantius, Ovid, and Isidore of Seville are among those who have contributed to the retelling and transmission of the phoenix motif. The origin of the phoenix has been attributed to Ancient Egypt by Herodotus and later 19th-century scholars, but other scholars think the Egyptian texts may have been influenced by classical folklore. In the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, a tool used by folklorists, the phoenix is classified as motif B32. Some legends say it dies in a show of flames and combustion, others that it simply dies and decomposes before being born again. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. The phoenix is an immortal bird associated with Greek mythology (with analogs in many cultures such as Egyptian and Persian) that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. A depiction of a phoenix by Friedrich Justin Bertuch, (1806)
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