Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix ( Greek Φοίνιξ Phoínix , from ancient Egyptian Benu : 'The born again / the newborn son'; Latin Phoenix ) is a mythical bird that burns or dies at the end of its life cycle, only to rise again from its rotting body or from its ashes .
This notion can still be found today in the phrase “ Like a phoenix from the ashes ” for something that was believed to be lost, but reappears in a new splendor.
Ancient myth
Already in the Egyptian mythology there is the most to the sun god or with Osiris associated Benu , usually depicted as a heron who dies in the evening and rises at sunrise in the morning.
In ancient Greece , Herodotus reported a myth that the ancient Egyptian sources do not confirm:
“There is another sacred bird called Phoenix. I only saw him pictured because he seldom comes to Egypt, in Heliopolis they say only every five hundred years. He should only come when his father has died. If the picture is correct, it will look like this. Its plumage is partly golden, partly completely red. In construction and size it resembles the eagle most. The following is said of what he did, but it doesn't seem credible to me. He came from Arabia and brought his father's body, wrapped in myrrh , to the temple of Helios, where he buried it. He carried the body like this. First he forms an egg out of myrrh, as big as he can carry it, and tries to pick it up. When he tries, he hollow out the egg and put the father's body inside. The place where he hollowed out the egg and put his father in it, he then sealed up again with myrrh, and the egg was now as heavy as it was before. And now let him carry it to the temple of Helios in Egypt. This is how you tell about this bird. "
Building on this description, Greek and Roman authors spread the idea during the Hellenistic period that the phoenix emerged from the ashes of Osiris or his remains and reached an old age of many, mostly five centuries. To do this, at the end of his life he builds a nest, sits in it and burns. After the flames have gone out, an egg remains, from which a new phoenix hatches after a short time.
In late antiquity , the phoenix became the symbol of immortality , as it had the ability to regenerate itself when enemies had wounded it. Among the Christians , he was considered a symbol of the resurrection .
Symbolism and meaning
The mythical figure of the phoenix emerged in the context of a religious worldview in order to explain the cyclical development of communities of faith and values over many generations. With the idea that the light of the sun is the basis of all life, the idea that the divine light determines the life cycle manifested itself.
These long cycles are known to many religious cultures, such as the Sumerians, Egyptians, Chinese and Maja. According to the Bible, life began after God created light.
reception
The most important opera house in Venice , which was rebuilt after a fire between 1790 and 1792, has been called La Fenice ever since .
In the fantasy literature and games of this genre, the phoenix or figures based on this mythical creature appear in various forms. In the video game series Final Fantasy , the phoenix appears as a being that can be summoned by the player and intervenes at various points in the game; Also in the games Age of Mythology and Warcraft 3 a phoenix can be summoned, which inflicts itself damage through its own heat and when it dies it transforms into an egg from which it rises again.
In the manga Yu-Gi-Oh! he is the "true form of the winged dragon of Ra". In the manga / anime One Piece , the character Marco can transform into a phoenix and has the ability to immediately heal himself after serious or fatal injuries. In the video game series Pokémon there is a character named Ho-Oh - actually the Japanese name of Fenghuang - who is optically based on the phoenix and whose special object, the “magic ash”, can revive Pokémon that have already been defeated. In Dragon Quest Monsters there is also a monster named Phoenix .
The Phoenix received an extensive manga reception in the unfinished cycle Hi No Tori by Osamu Tezuka . The phoenix is the central figure, which thematically unites the twelve linked stories.
The title of the film The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) also refers to the phoenix's ability to rise from its own ashes. In the movie Star Trek: The First Contact (1996), “Phoenix” is the name of the first spaceship known to man to move at faster than light.
The Greek military dictatorship used a phoenix as a logo, which limited the use of the national coat of arms in official traffic.
In the Star Wars universe, the phoenix also appears as a heraldic animal in a stylized form: The coat of arms of the Rebel Alliance is a stylized phoenix, as is the coat of arms of the Jedi Order and the Old Republic. In the further course of the story within the "Expanded Universe", i.e. the books that take place after the films, the phoenix appears repeatedly as a heraldic animal in organizations of the New Republic, the Jedi Order or the Galactic Alliance.
The last album of the English rock band Wishbone Ash contains the ten-minute long epic piece Phoenix .
The main character of the Japanese game Phoenix Wright is also called Phoenix in the US and European versions.
The well-known, free web browser Firefox was called Phoenix at the beginning of its development (2002) . For licensing reasons, the name was changed to Firebird in 2003 . Finally, the last name change in Firefox for the time being took place in 2004 .
With the song Rise Like a Phoenix won Conchita Wurst the Euro Vision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen .
In the Harry Potter novel series , the writer Joanne K. Rowling took up the myth of the phoenix, a bird with miraculous powers, with the phoenix Fawkes , the headmaster Albus Dumbledore's pet .
See also
- Phönix , Phoenix and Phoinix for further meanings and namesake
- Phoenix in heraldry
- In ancient China there was Feng Huang , a being similar to the phoenix.
- The bird creature Simurgh of Persian mythology
- Firebird
- De ave Phoenice
swell
- Herodotus , Historien 2,73 ( source: en: History of Herodotus 2 )
- Ovid , Metamorphoses XV, 391-407
- Pomponius Mela , De chorographia 3.72
- Pliny the Elder , Naturalis Historia 10.2 ( source: la: Naturalis Historia 10.2 )
- Tacitus , Annales 6,28 ( source: en: The Annals (Tacitus) 6,28 )
- Achilles Tatios , Leukippe and Kleitophon 3.25
- Clement of Rome , 1 Clem 25.1
- Lactantius , De ave Phoenice
- Isidore of Seville , Etymologiae 12.7
- Wolfram von Eschenbach , Parzival IX, 471 ff.
literature
- Gustav Türk : Phoinix 4 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 3.2, Leipzig 1909, Col. 3450-3472 ( digitized version ). (Including sources in German translation.)
- R. Van den Broek, The Myth of the Phoenix - According to Classical and Early Christian Traditions. Brill, Leiden 1972.
- Françoise Lecocq: The Dark Phoenix: Rewriting An Ancient Myth in Today's Popular Culture. In: Małgorzata Budzowska, Jadwiga Czerwińska (ed.): Ancient Myths in the Making of Culture (= Warsaw Studies in Classical Literature and Culture. Vol. 3). Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern a. a. 2014, ISBN 978-3-653-04507-9 , pp. 341-354.
Web links
- Friedhelm Hoffmann : Phoenix. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
- 12koerbe.de - Translation of ancient literature with printed original texts
Remarks
- ^ Friedhelm Hoffmann : Phoenix. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
- ↑ Herodotus : Histories . Ed .: Hans Wilhelm Haussig . 4th edition. Alfred Kröner, Stuttgart 1971, ISBN 3-520-22404-6 , II, 73, pp. 130 f . (online: Herodot, About Egypt. Histories 2, 35–99. On a course given by Christian Gizewski in SS 2001. (No longer available online.) In: Website of the TU Berlin. 2001, archived from the original . )