1564 - 1616
Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
William Shakespeare is considered a poet but to most people he is just a play writer. He most famous for his plays "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet", and "King Lear". William Shakespeare is also is a actor known in Stationer's Register.
There is no birth records of William Shakespeare he was baptized at the Holy Trinity Church in 1564. Archaeologists assume that he was born around this date and year.
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLEA POEM BYWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Phoenix and the TurtleLet the bird of loudest layOn the sole Arabian tree,Herald sad and trumpet be,To whose sound chaste wings obey.But thou shrieking harbinger,Foul precurrer of the fiend,Augur of the fever's end,To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdictEvery fowl of tyrant wingSave the eagle, feather'd king:Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice whiteThat defunctive music can,Be the death-divining swan,Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,That thy sable gender mak'stWith the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:—Love and constancy is dead;Phoenix and the turtle fledIn a mutual flame from hence.
So they loved, as love in twainHad the essence but in one;Two distincts, division none;Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;Distance, and no space was seen'Twixt the turtle and his queen:But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine,That the turtle saw his rightFlaming in the phoenix' sight;Either was the other's mine.
Property was thus appall'd,That the self was not the same;Single nature's double nameNeither two nor one was call'd.
Reason, in itself confounded,Saw division grow together;To themselves yet either neither;Simple were so well compounded,
That it cried, 'How true a twainSeemeth this concordant one!Love hath reason, reason noneIf what parts can so remain.'
Whereupon it made this threneTo the phoenix and the dove,Co-supremes and stars of love,As chorus to their tragic scene.
BEAUTY, truth, and rarity,Grace in all simplicity,Here enclosed in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix' nest;And the turtle's loyal breastTo eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:'Twas not their infirmity,It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be;Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repairThat are either true or fair;For these dead birds sigh a prayer.