E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Phœnix.
Said to live a certain number of years, when it makes in Arabia a nest of spices, sings a melodious dirge, flaps his wings to set fire to the pile, burns itself to ashes, and comes forth with new life, to repeat the former one. (See PHŒNIX PERIOD.)
1
“The enchanted pile of that lonely bird,
Who sings at the last his own death-lay,
And in music and perfume dies away.”
Thomas Moore: Paradise and the Peri.
Phœnix, as a sign over chemists’ shops, was adopted from the association of this fabulous bird with alchemy. Paracelsus wrote about it, and several of the alchemists employed it to symbolise their vocation.
2
A phœnix among women. A phœnix of his kind. A paragon, unique; because there was but one phœnix at a time.
3
“If she be furnished with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird.”
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, i. 7.
The Spanish Phœnix. Lope de Vega is so called by G. H. Lewes.
