Summary

The threnos or threnody is a lament for someone who is dead. It functions as a poem within the poem. The threnody names the virtues: "beauty, grace, and rarity," and so on, which are now lost because the true lovers, the phoenix and the turtledove, are dead (53). The narrator reiterates that both are dead, and expresses that they left behind no offspring, having always remained faithful to each other. The second-to-last stanza speaks about truth and beauty in extremely obscure terms, landing on the only clear statement in the stanza: that they are gone. The poem ends with an instruction to readers to, if they are "true and fair," pay their respect to these dead birds and pray for them (66).

Analysis

This section of the poem is labelled as the “threnos.” This indicates to the reader that it is the genre of poetry...