Which Character Can’t Die?
WHEN HARRY’S ADVENTURES BEGIN IN the first book,
the oldest characters are Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel, who are
both more than 600 years old. But they lose their immortality when
the Philosopher’s Stone is lost. However, another important
character may be truly immortal: Fawkes, Dumbledore’s pet
phoenix.
The phoenix is a magical, eternal bird. It lives
for centuries—some people say 500 years. The Latin poet Ovid
said:
There is a bird which renews itself again and again.
The Assyrians gave this bird
his name—the Phoenix.
He does not live either on
grain or herbs, but only on small drops of frankincense and juices
of cardamom. When this bird
completes a full five centuries of life, with
his talons and with shining beak he builds a nest high among the
palm branches. He places in this new nest the cassia bark and ears
of sweet spikenard and some bruised cinnamon with yellow myrrh.
Then he lies among those dreamful scents, and dies. And the
Assyrians say that from the body of the dying bird is reproduced a
little Phoenix which is destined to live just as many
years.
Because of its association with fire, the phoenix
came to be a symbol of alchemists. That led to its appearance on
the signs of chemists’ shops.
“When the bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir, As great in admiration as
herself . . .” William Shakespeare, Henry
VIII (Act V, scene v)
This sacred creature, almost always described as red and gold, was known as benu in ancient Egypt, where it originated. “Phoenix” is actually a Greek word. It means both “purple” and “date palm tree,” which leads scholars to guess that either the name came from a purple bird or from the idea that the phoenix built its nest at the top of a palm.
It was an important symbol of the city of
Heliopolis (“Sun City”). In the Egyptian Book
of the Dead, a religious text written about 2000 BC, the
phoenix claims, “I am the keeper of the Tablet of Destiny, the
volume of the book of things which have happened and of things
which shall be.” In Egyptian hieroglyphics, the phoenix image
conveys the passage of time, and it remains a symbol of immortality
today. Writers also use the phoenix to signify undying love and
loyalty. In “The Canonization,” the seventeenth-century poet John
Donne writes to his wife,
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit,
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
FAWKES’S NAME
Fawkes’s name is related to the phoenix
legend—but with a historical twist. Obviously he is named for Guy
Fawkes, member of a famous attempt to blow up the English
Parliament
building on November 5, 1605. The Gunpowder Plot, as it is called,
was to be the start of a revolt by English Catholics, who were
being persecuted at the time. The conspirators hid thirty-six
barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords, but there were so
many conspirators that the plan leaked. Authorities arrested the
men and executed many of them. (The situation for Catholics only
became worse.) In Britain, November 5 is now Guy Fawkes Night,
celebrated with bonfires—like the funeral pyre of a phoenix.
In Asia, the phoenix is among the four mystical
animals with great influence. The others are the dragon, the
unicorn, and the tortoise.
See also: Black, Sirius Egypt
Order of the Phoenix