The Phoenix and Turtle is Shakespeare's allegorical poem on the mystical nature of love.
The poem tells of the funeral of two lovers the phoenix, a mythological bird associated with immortality, and the turtledove (usually called “turtle” in Elizabethan English), a symbol of fidelity. The two birds have burned themselves to death in order to be forever joined in love. The allegory celebrates an ideal of love in which an absolute spiritual union of the lovers, defying rationality and common sense is chastely achieved through death, the ultimate refection of the world.
