Phoenix (Maplet)

This is the entry for phoenix from Maplet's A Greene Forest.

Of Phœnix the bird

Phænix is a bird of Arabie of marveilous long life, she liveth about six hundreth and fiftie yearse, and at the last being werie of hir life, goeth to the groaves there, and gathereth small slippes and twigs of such kinde of trees as be both extreme whot & odoriferous withal as in Cinomon and such like: and so besterwsth hir nest, commonly made in the highest firre trees, & next to the Sunne: and flying thither lieth voluntarily in hir nest, abiding both the burning of the spice & Sunne, and therewith is consumed to ashes. And of those ashes animated by the Sunne, and other Plantes, arises another Phenix, which maintaineth and continueth the kind from time to time. Some have the opinion that no man ever saw hir eate. She is consecrated to Sol: Plinie sayth that there was one of these brought into the Citye of Rome when Claudius was Censor. The yeare of the Citie 800.