Phoenix (Symbol)
The phoenix is generally thought to symbolize beauty, chastity, and perfection. It is a mythical bird that rises from its own ashes. In the poetry of the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch, the phoenix is a symbol for his beautiful and virtuous lover Laura. These meanings are present in Shakespeare’s poem, but what is more important is what the Phoenix and the Turtle symbolize when joined in love: beauty, truth, rarity, and grace.
Turtle (Symbol)
The turtledove is traditionally a symbol for devotion, faithfulness, and affection in marriage. In Shakespeare’s poem too, the Turtle is described as having a “loyal breast.” At the same time, more important than any individual symbolism of the Turtle is the ideal love that the two represent when they come together.
Arabian tree (Symbol)
This is a symbol for the Phoenix, which is associated with the palm tree.
Screech-owl (Symbol)
The screech-owl (the "shrieking harbinger") is a symbol for death and so is forbidden from mourning with the other birds.
The eagle (Symbol)
The eagle symbolizes royalty, so joins the gathering of birds as a king.
The swan (Symbol)
The swan is a symbol of religion, as its white color resembles a priest’s garb.
The crow (Symbol)
The crow represents longevity (because the animal lives a long time) and chastity (because myths describe crows as reproducing through breath alone).
The Phoenix and the Turtle (Allegory)
The entire poem is an extended allegory on the meaning of love. The love between the Phoenix and the Turtle represents a divine form of love in which the lovers are both joined and individual. This love defies the rules of logic and even physics. They are both themselves and each other, distant and joined. If their love is an allegory for a form of love that is both beautiful and true, their death also shows the disappearance of beauty and truth from the world. The kind of love the poem describes is no longer possible.
One and two (Motif)
The poem repeatedly plays with the words “one” and “two” to show how the love between the Phoenix and the Turtle unites them while also preserving their individuality. For example, the poem tells us that they “lov’d, as love in twain [two] / Had the essence but in one.” Elsewhere it comments on the same paradox of the lovers remaining both one and two: “How true a twain/Seemeth this concordant one!”
Death (Motif)
The poem repeatedly describes death. This begins with the screech-owl who is not invited to mourn because it is a “Foul precurrer of the fiend” (a bad forerunner of death). Similarly, all birds of prey (with the exception of the king-like eagle) are forbidden to join in the ceremony because of their association with killing and death. The swan is also associated with death, but in a more positive light because the bird is described as singing as it dies. The rest of the poem repeatedly brings back the motif of death by describing the passing of the Phoenix and the Turtle.
