IN the Garden of Paradise, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, bloomed a rose bush. Here, in the first rose, a bird was born: his flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing.
But when Eve plucked the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, when she and Adam were driven from Paradise, there fell from the flaming sword of the cherub1 a spark into the nest of the bird, which blazed up forthwith. The bird perished in the flames; but from the red egg in the nest there fluttered aloft a new one----the one solitary2 Phoenix3 bird. The fable4 tells us that he dwells in Arabia, and that every hundred years he burns himself to death in his nest; but each time a new Phoenix, the only one in the world, rises up from the red egg.
The bird flutters round us, swift as light, beauteous in colour, charming in song. When a mother sits by her infant's cradle, he stands on the pillow, and, with his wings, forms a glory around the infant's head. He flies through the chamber6 of content, and brings sunshine into it, and the violets on the humble7 table smell doubly sweet.
But the Phoenix is not the bird of Arabia alone. He wings his way in the glimmer8 of the Northern Lights over the icy plains of Lapland, and hops9 among the yellow flowers in the short Greenland summer. Beneath the copper10 mountains of Fahlun and in England's coal mines, he flies, in the shape of a dusty moth5, over the hymn-book that rests on the knees of the pious11 miner. On a lotus leaf he floats down the sacred waters of the Ganges, and the eye of the Hindoo maid gleams bright when she beholds12 him.
The Phoenix bird, dost thou not know him?
The Bird of Paradise, the holy swan of song! On the car of Thespis he sat in the guise13 of a chattering14 raven15,and flapped his black wings, smeared16 with the lees of wine; over the sounding harp17 of Iceland swept the swan's red beak18; on Shakespeare's shoulder he sat in the guise of Odin's raven, and whispered in his ear“Immortality!” and at the minstrels' feast he fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg.
The Phoenix bird, dost thou not know him? He sang to thee the Marseillaise, and thou kissedst the feather that fell from his wing; he came in the radiance of Paradise, and perchance thou didst turn away from him towards the sparrow who sat with tinsel on his wings.
The Bird of Paradise----renewed each century----born in flame, ending in flame! Thy picture, in a golden frame,hangs in the halls of the rich, but thou thyself often fliest around, lonely and disregarded, a myth----“The Phoenix of Arabia.”
In Paradise, when thou wert born in the first rose, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, thou receivedst a kiss, and thy right name was given thee----thy name, oerry.
1 cherub | |
n.小天使,胖娃娃 | |
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2 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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3 phoenix | |
n.凤凰,长生(不死)鸟;引申为重生 | |
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4 fable | |
n.寓言;童话;神话 | |
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5 moth | |
n.蛾,蛀虫 | |
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6 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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7 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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8 glimmer | |
v.发出闪烁的微光;n.微光,微弱的闪光 | |
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9 hops | |
跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 ); 单足蹦跳; 齐足(或双足)跳行; 摘葎草花 | |
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10 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
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11 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
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12 beholds | |
v.看,注视( behold的第三人称单数 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
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13 guise | |
n.外表,伪装的姿态 | |
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14 chattering | |
n. (机器振动发出的)咔嗒声,(鸟等)鸣,啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的,啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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15 raven | |
n.渡鸟,乌鸦;adj.乌亮的 | |
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16 smeared | |
弄脏; 玷污; 涂抹; 擦上 | |
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17 harp | |
n.竖琴;天琴座 | |
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18 beak | |
n.鸟嘴,茶壶嘴,钩形鼻 | |
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