The Phoenix and the Turtle

by William Shakespeare

The Phoenix and the Turtle is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love by William Shakespeare. It is widely considered to be one of his most obscure works and has led to many conflicting interpretations. It has also been called "the first great published metaphysical poem".

The title "The Phoenix and the Turtle" is a conventional label. As published, the poem was untitled. The "turtle" is the Turtledove, not the shelled reptile.

Genres: Poetry, Shakespeare, Classics, Fiction, Ebooks, Romance, British Literature

1 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1601

About the author

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".

Reviews

[Olivia-Savannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a good poem and very interesting! I can definitely see the ambiguity in trying to discern the message and meaning behind the poem. Very well written and I enjoyed puzzling over this one.

[MischaS_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

jednoduchá báseň, ale zato krásná. rozhodně si ji chci přečíst i v originále.
láska chápe, rozum ne.

[Polly Batchelor · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Truth may seem but cannot be;
Beauty brag but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be."

[Katja Labonté · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars & 2/10 hearts. I don’t like admitting it, but in the spirit of truth, I didn’t get most of the poem. I understood what happened, but not everything in the poem. I’d like to give it a reread sometime though—when I’m not tired.

[T.R. Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poem holds some of my favourite lines Shakespeare ever wrote. Short but brilliant.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. I had never even heard of this poem until tonight. It wasn't in any of the works of Shakespeare that I own. To be honest, I thought The Bard only wrote sonnets and plays, so when I discovered that there were some other works of poetry I was intrigued. Unfortunately, The Phoenix and the Turtle is like the "American Pie" of Elizabethan England--so coded it's difficult to tell what in the heck is being said. I read it twice, but twice is not enough. I need to study this further in hopes of getting more out of it. I would love to rate it higher, but as of yet I have no idea what it means other than a Phoenix and a turtle(dove) fall in love and die. Feel free to clue me in, people.

[Angel Parrish · Rating 1 out of 5]

Amazon freebie

One of Shakespeare's first works. After reading it, I can say with confidence: I have absolutely no idea what it's about.

[gabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was pretty, but hard to understand.

[John Yelverton · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an elegant poem, but using a 1,2,2,1 rhyming scheme made it very clunky, and ending with a 1,1,1, rhyming scheme highlighted this clunkiness and exacerbated it.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and sad. The very last thing in my Shakespeare collection (besides the glossary)!

[Mythlee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, it was okay

[Rao Javed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how yo understand it that's why I love it.

[Jacky Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nobody really knows what's going on here, and the supremely philosophical tone and style does not even sound particularly Shakespearean to me. What's most interesting about this poem appears to be the way it positions Shakespeare within poetic milieux: there is a mixing of modes and tenors found in other Elizabethan poem, and notably it was first appendatorily published in Robert Chester's Love's Martyr alongside poems by Ben Jonson, George Chapman etc.

[Italia8989 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be the most obscure writing I have read of Shakespeare thus far. It might also be the most confusing thing I have ever read. With the help of transliteration, everything in this beautiful poem becomes clearer. (It also helped when I realized the turtle was a dove and not a reptile.) Shakespeare uses multiple historical innuendos in this poem along with abstract personification. There are a lot of repetitive explanations about the phoenix and turtle being "one in two beings." Everything Shakespeare writes returns to this theme. Although this seems to be annoying, he wanted us to realize why the phoenix and turtle should be remembered and that there will never be another union like them.

[Joaomaia · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Shakespeare's "The Phoenix and the Turtle" is a poem that may be characterized as both an allegory and an elegy. An allegory is a literary work with a hidden meaning (and sometimes several hidden meanings). An elegy is a somber poem lamenting a person's death or memorializing a dead person.

[Linnea Peterson]

With some help from a dictionary and Google I managed to understand most of it, but I think I'll have to do a re-read to understand it further. Can't really rate it at this point.

[Steve Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, sweet, and rather obscure. One needs to read it slowly to grasp the meaning.

[Lillian Slater · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd in cinders lie."

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beautiful and thought-provoking allegorical poem from Shakespeare. I’ll have to engage in further study to figure out The Phoenix and the Turtle’s deeper meaning.


[Image: Stained glass window of a Phoenix, Parish Church of Purgstall, Austria. Source: Wikimedia Commons]

“Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever's end,
To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather'd king;
Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,
'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the Turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.

So they lov'd, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seen
'Twixt this Turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine
That the Turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phoenix' sight:
Either was the other's mine.

Property was thus appalled
That the self was not the same;
Single nature's double name
Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded;

That it cried, "How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love has reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain."

Whereupon it made this threne
To the Phoenix and the Dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene:

threnos

Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd, in cinders lie.

Death is now the Phoenix' nest,
And the Turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.

Truth may seem but cannot be;
Beauty brag but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.”

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Citations:
Shakespeare, W. (2010). William Shakespeare complete works ultimate collection (D. Mark, Ed.; eBook). Everlasting Flames Publishing. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Nance, T. (2021, August 10). “Shakespeare's ‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ Discussion and Reading” (video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVvGw...

Title: The Phoenix and the Turtle
Author(s): William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Year: 1601
Genre: Fiction - Narrative Poem: Allegory
Date(s) read: 11/12/25
Book 240 in 2025
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[Tumblyhome (Caroline) · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not a book/play I am including this.. because I am. It was written around the time of Twelfth Night and it is an allegorical poem that means any number of things. Read six reviews and you will get seven opinions (e.g. it could be about Elizabeth l the virgin queen..She had associations with a Phoenix… ) but however it is interpreted, it is quite lovely and gets better the more you read it.
It starts with birds coming in to a funeral for the Phoenix and the turtle dove. Mostly I like how the screech owl is forbidden, being a bit of a doom ridden outcast.. and the bird of prey, of foule tyrant wing, but ok, the crow suitably attired all in black and eagle are permitted and of course the swan. The lines following that are quite beautiful I think.
Anyway, I have included it in my Shakespeare project but I am woefully behind with the sonnets. Maybe the sonnets will have to be a 2024 project because I can’t catch up and do them justice at this stage.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This poem is one of William Shakespeare's shortest works, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Speaking about the nature of perfect love and lamenting for its death, the poem is written in a simple, musical meter. I found it rather easy to understand, barring a complicated line or two, and the poem's language is beautiful from start to finish. Although the idea itself is so simple, this is a thought-provoking poem that will certainly make the reader think about their own life.

All in all, this was one of my preferred Shakespeare works despite its lack of length. I give it 4 stars only because I found it too short to be extremely profound or life-changing, but compared to the rest of Shakespeare's works I would still give this poem a B+ or even A-. Because of its shortness and approachability, I would highly recommend this poem to anyone with even a remote interest in poetry or literature.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one on Google Books and wasn't aware of the explanation because I read it straight through. I initially believed the poem was about a phoenix and an actual turtle fighting for someone they love, but it didn't feel right with me, so I had to read it several times. After some time, I came to the conclusion that both the phoenix and the turtle died. However, according to the explanation on the document I read on Google Books, the poem is about an immortal mythological phoenix and a turtledove who love each other so much that they are willing to burn each other in order to be together forever, even after death.

I'm actually not a fan of such an ending, and I think this piece is rather tragic... 3

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a cute little poem to wash over you with beauty, but not really have the faintest idea what it's about, The Phoenix and the Turtle is great. Almost every stanza has something in it that's worth making a note of, but it seems to be a metaphysical poem to which I am missing the key. Katherine Duncan Jones explains it in terms of the book (Love's Martyr) from which it is taken, and the politics of the later years of Queen Elizabeth, but that looks to me like a (clever) guess.

I think it's a love story between two birds, but there is probably a reason Shakespeare's not known for his metaphysical poetry.

[Anisha ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Shakespeare's non-dramatic, allegorical poem which wasn't well known until Ralph Emerson discovered it in the 19th century. It was published with other short poems in Robert Chester's "Love's Martyrdom" anthology(1601)
The poem is about the short-lived love between the phoenix and the turtle dove, as they die together. The other birds summon each other for a funeral where 'Reason' laments the deaths and glorifies the love between the lovers.
Some interpret the phoenix as allegorically Queen Elizabeth while the turtle dove is her lover Earl of Leicester. There are other interpretations as well.

[Amelia Bujar · Rating 2 out of 5]

FULL REVIEW ON MY WEBSITE
https://thebookcornerchronicles.com/2...

To be honest in this poem William Shakespeare gets a little ahead of himself.

It wasn’t that good and I had bigger expectations for this one than I had for the majority of William Shakespeare’s work. But it didn’t live up to most of my exceptions which disappointed me somehow.

The plot in this poem are in a way about death which the majority of William Shakespeare’s work is about. But this pome takes a little Bit unique take on it which I gave it extra points for.

[Debyi Kucera (Book&BuJo) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare showcases the depth of love and the tragedy of the deaths of two lovers (a phoenix and a turtledove).

The prose is beautiful and flows well, although the meaning behind the poem is a bit more obscure. I did read this through a couple of times and listened to a reading of it to see if it would help. Upon the second read and looking at others' thoughts on the poem, things started to click.

Honestly, I was happy with the beauty of the writing without understanding it, then curiosity won out and I went digging to find out the meaning and it made it even more beautiful.

3.5 stars

[Kimberly]

I recently did my family tree history it shows I am related to Lady Ursula Stanley not sure how accurate that is but, I was intrigued that she had involvement in this poem somehow! I read William Shakespeare previously but in my opinion this poem sounds like it refers to deaths of a few of John Salusbury and Lady Ursula Stanley's children. And possibly a deeper relationship between Lady Ursula Stanley and William Shakespeare. That's what I got from reading it!

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this poem Shakespeare gets a little ahead of himself. The language is beautiful and I like his changed rhyming scheme, but I think it ends up being too metaphysical to make much sense. I get that it’s about love, and maybe that is all it is supposed to be about, but he used the imagery of the turtle dove and the Phoenix with purpose but failed to draw enough connections to make it particularly meaningful. The language is good though and it is certainly authentically him.

[Theo]

I feel like this was a good poem, but I didn't fully understand it - though as far as I can tell there is no consensus as to what it is about anyway. I still struggle with some poetry, especially the more metaphysical ones - at school Yeats' "The Second Coming" took me a long time to wrap my head around. I think though I probably just haven't read enough. I can say though that this poem is certainly very well constructed, it fits together well and the stress pattern and flow suit an elegy.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. A masterful work. Favorite lines:

"Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the Turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence."

"So between them love did shine
That the Turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phoenix' sight:
Either was the other's mine."

"Truth may seem but cannot be;
Beauty brag but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be."

"To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer."