THE EAGLE

The eagle is the king of birds.  When it is old it becomes young again in a very strange manner.  When its eyes are darkened and its wings are heavy with age, it seeks out a fountain clear and pure, where the water bubbles up and shines in the clear sunlight.  Above this fountain it rises high up into the air, and fixes its eyes upon the light of the sun and gazes upon it until the heat thereof sets on fire its eyes and wings.  Then it descends down into the fountain where the water is clearest and brightest, and plunges and bathes three times, until it is fresh and renewed and healed of its old age[6].

[Footnote 6:  “Bated like eagles having lately bathed.”—­’I Henry IV.,’ iv.  I.]

The eagle has such keen vision, that if it is high up among the clouds, soaring through the air, it sees the fish swimming beneath it, in river or sea; then down it shoots upon the fish and seizes and drags it to the shore.  Again, if unknown to the eagle its eggs should be changed and others put into its nest,—­when the young are grown, before they fly away, it carries them up into the air when the sun is shining its brightest.  Those which can look at the rays of the sun, without blinking, it loves and holds dear; those which cannot stand to look at the light, it abandons, as base-born, nor troubles itself henceforth concerning them[7].

[Footnote 7: 
     “Nay, if thou be that princely eagle’s bird,
     Show thy descent by gazing ‘gainst the sun.”—­’3 Henry VI.,’ ii.  I.]

THE PHOENIX

There is a bird named the phoenix, which dwells in India and is never found elsewhere.  This bird is always alone and without companion, for its like cannot be found, and there is no other bird which resembles it in habits or appearance[8].  At the end of five hundred years it feels that it has grown old, and loads itself with many rare and precious spices, and flies from the desert away to the city of Leopolis.  There, by some sign or other, the coming of the bird is announced to a priest of that city, who causes fagots to be gathered and placed upon a beautiful altar, erected for the bird.  And so, as I have said, the bird, laden with spices, comes to the altar, and smiting upon the hard stone with its beak, it causes the flame to leap forth and set fire to the wood and the spices.  When the fire is burning brightly, the phoenix lays itself upon the altar and is burned to dust and ashes.

[Footnote 8:  “Were man as rare as phoenix.”—­’As You Like It,’ iv. 3.]

Then comes the priest and finds the ashes piled up, and separating them softly he finds within a little worm, which gives forth an odor sweeter than that of roses or of any other flower.  The next day and the next the priest comes again, and on the third day he finds that the worm has become a full-grown and full-fledged bird, which bows low before him and flies away, glad and joyous, nor returns again before five hundred years[9].