The Phoenix - Philosophical Vignettes
By David Gosselin
It was upon a quiet night
As graying clouds raced past the moon.
A sage and pupil made their way
Into a deep and darkened wood.
Among a sea of silent pines,
They traveled the uncertain trail.
But after wandering the night,
They finally settled for rest.
They found a grot and set up camp
And made a fire to warm their limbs.
But as they rested by the flames
And thought about their trying day,
A mysterious glowing light
Appeared before the weary twain.
It shone unlike the sun or stars;
It had a strange and tempered hue.
But as the source of light remained
Unseen among the glistening fog,
The master and his pupil chose
To make their way towards the light.
To both the travelers’ surprise,
They came upon a phoenix nest.
The phoenix sat there purple-plumed
And covered in a coat of fire.
It lay among the glowing rocks
Where it had made what seemed its nest.
“What purpose has this beast inside
These woods, master,” the boy questioned.
“Does he not live among the sands
And scorching heat of desert climes?”
“Such birds are born in many worlds
And live out many lives,” said the sage.
“For, that bright bird dies many times—
Many times more than you’d believe.”
“How painful then,” the student said,
“To have to die so many times.”
The master turned towards the boy,
“It’s also reborn many times.
“Its death is not well understood,
But even less is its rebirth.
“For, one’s death is not what men fear,”
The master said, “They fear rebirth.”
But as the sage and student stood
Discoursing by the creature’s nest,
It suddenly opened its wings,
And flew into the starry sky.
Image by Dong Bi Hua
David B. Gosselin is a poet, translator, writer, and researcher in Montreal, Canada. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Chained Muse. His epic in blank verse, Athena, appears in the latest issue of New Lyre Magazine.
I like this poem. It's vivid and precise, and makes its points regarding death and rebirth rather well, before leaving us with a nice image of a phoenix, alive and flying in a starry sky. The positivity of that appeals to me.
Life is, indeed, a mystery. I believe both Twain and Einstein did not side with the Phoenix and said no wise man would want to return to this planet. Some of the greatest poets were antinatalists, arguing against procreation:
It’s a hundred times better not be born;
but if we cannot avoid the light,
the path of least harm is swiftly to return
to death’s eternal night!
—Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
***
Happy the soul who speeds back to the Source,
but crowned with peace is the one who never came.
—a Sophoclean passage from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
***
According to Aristotle, it had become so common in ancient Greece to say "It is best not to be born" that it was considered a cliché!
"You ... may well consider those blessed and happiest who have departed this life before you ... This thought is indeed so old that the one who first uttered it is no longer known; it has been passed down to us from eternity, and hence doubtless it is true. Moreover, you know what is so often said and [now] passes for a trite expression ... It is best not to be born at all; and next to that, it is better to die than to live; and this is confirmed even by divine testimony [i.e, the wisdom of Silenus]: ... The best for them [humans] is not to be born at all, not to partake of nature's excellence; not to be is best, for both sexes. This should be our choice, if choice we have; and the next to this is, when we are born, to die as soon as we can." — Aristotle, Eudemus (354 BCE), surviving fragment quoted in Plutarch, Consolatio ad Apollonium, sec. xxvii
***
The Bible's wisest man, King Solomon, agreed with the ancient Greeks that it was best not to be born:
"So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun." — King James Bible, Ecclesiastes 4:1-3, attributed to King Solomon
***
Another strong, relentlessly questioning voice was that of a blind Arabic seer ...
Antinatalist Shyari Couplets by Abul Ala Al-Ma'arri (973-1057)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Lighten your tread:
The ground beneath your feet is composed of the dead.
Walk slowly here and always take great pains
Not to trample some departed saint's remains.
And happiest here is the hermit with no hand
In making sons, who dies a childless man.
***
Bittersight
by Michael R. Burch
for Abu al-Ala Al-Ma'arri
To be plagued with sight
in the Land of the Blind,
—to know birth is death
and that Death is kind—
is to be flogged like Eve
(stripped, sentenced and fined)
because evil is “good”
in some backwards mind.