Editorial note
I have modernized spelling and punctuation in this poem with the aim of enhancing clarity and readability. The notes gloss unfamiliar words and provide cultural and literary contexts.
Headnote
In this poem, the Manucodiat, a bird now known as a bird-of-paradise, becomes an emblem that allows for an exploration of the links between God’s love for his creations, a parent’s love for her partner and her children, and the speaker’s own desires for spiritual transcendence. The first half of the poem describes the fabulous lore associated with the bird-of-paradise. It was believed that these birds never landed on the ground, fed only upon dew, and hatched their eggs from the conjoined bodies of male and female partners. Pulter explains that these birds are “crowned” for their “indulgency”—of their partners and their offspring—and this quality becomes the basis for the lesson of the second half of the poem. Parents are instructed to learn “indulgency” from the example of the birds-of-paradise, but the speaker develops this general injunction of “unity” into self-reflection and self-interrogation. Love comes only from “above,” and the speaker implores God to “irradiate” her soul with this love so that she may serve as an intermediary between the divine and her relations on earth. The speaker longs to inhabit the liminal space of the birds-of-paradise—halfway between the heavens and the earth—a conclusion that expands their emblematic significance.Line number 1
Critical note
Manucodiats are now known as birds-of-paradise, a group of species native to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Australia. Manucodiata derives from the Javanese phrase manuk dewata, bird of the gods (see OED manucodiata). European travelers and natural historians wrote about the bird-of-paradise for the first time in the sixteenth century, though most were familiar with the animal only through dead specimens. The bird-of-paradise was the subject of much lore and legend, which Pulter acknowledges in the first line of the poem (“as authors write”). One important part of this lore is its association with the phoenix, a divine bird that is reborn from its own ashes. Thomas P. Harrison collects much of this lore, including its association with the phoenix, in “Bird of Paradise: Phoenix Redivivus,” Isis, vol. 51, no 2 (1960): pp. 173-80.Line number 5
Critical note
The traits Pulter identifies with the birds-of-paradise, including the belief that they never land on the earth and do not eat, are included in the description in Du Bartas’s very popular hexameral poem, The Divine Weeks and Works. The bird-of-paradise is included with the “Strange admirable birds” on the fifth day of the first week of the poem. The belief that the bird-of-paradise has no feet and, thus, never touches the ground, likely derives from the preparation of specimens with the feet, and sometimes wings and heads, removed (Harrison 175). For an illustration of a speciment prepared this way and an excerpt from Du Bartas’s poem, see Birds Without Feet? in the Curations for this poem.Line number 7
Critical note
the quality or act of being indulgent; the gratification of another’s desires; forebearance; relaxation of restraint (OED, "indulgency," n., 1; “indulgence,” n., 1a.). Indulgency is the quality that “crowns” the bird-of-paradise; i.e. their generosity toward others is what is most admirable about them. Though the ultimate beneficiaries of their indulgence are their offspring, the following lines suggest that it is their care for their partners, signified by their “conjoined” bodies, that confirms their superiority to other birds and ensures that their offspring are secure.Line number 9
Critical note
Pulter elevates birds-of-paradise above other species (swans and doves) that also share the care of offspring between male and female partners. The birds-of-paradise “transcend all animals in love” because of their unique anatomy, as understood by their first European observers, allows the male and female to join together to protect the egg. By the second half of the seventeenth century, natural historians had begun to challenge earlier accounts of this bird. See Birds Without Feet? in the Curations for this poem.Line number 16
Critical note
the meaning or lesson of the emblem. Parents must seek “unity” with each other in order to be “blessed” in their children.Line number 25
Gloss note
qualified, adapted or disposed for the reception of; of capacity or qualified to do something (OED, "capacious," n., 3); i.e. everything on the earth that is capable of receiving the sun’s light. Sorry, but there are no notes associated with
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