1 dial clock
11 Shrovetide the three days immediately preceding the season of Lent; this epilogue was written for a court performance by Shakespeare’s company on Shrove Tuesday February 20, 1599
14 boards tables
* “Let…Lay” untitled when originally published, this poem has been known since the early 1800s as “The Phoenix and Turtle”
1 bird…lay never positively identified within the poem; the following line suggests that it might refer to the mythological Arabian phoenix lay song
3 trumpet trumpeter
5 shrieking harbinger often identified as the screech owl, regarded as a bird of ill omen whose cry heralded death
6 precurrer precursor fiend devil
7 Augur predictor (literally soothsayer who made predictions based on the behavior of birds)
9 session sitting (of court or parliament) interdict prohibit
10 fowl…wing bird of prey/usurper, despot
11 Save except
12 obsequy funeral rites strict restricted, exclusive/rigorously maintained
13 surplice ecclesiastical garment (here, the swan’s white feathers)
14 defunctive deathly, funereal can knows
15 death-divining the swan was thought to know that its own death was coming, at which point it would sing
16 his right what is due (either to the swan or to the requiem; puns on “rite”)
17 treble-dated living three times the normal span
18 sable gender black offspring; the crow was thought to reproduce chastely through the touching of beaks and exchange of breath
21 anthem piece of music or song of praise
23 Phoenix mythological Arabian bird which lived for five hundred years, was consumed by fire and then reborn from the ashes; only one existed at a time turtle turtledove, a bird renowned for love and constancy fled have departed this life
24 In…flame together in one flame
25 So…as they so loved that twain two
26 essence…one essential irreducible quality of one thing
27 distincts separate things
28 Number the concept of plurality
29 remote apart asunder separated
30 Distance distance and proximity was seen
32 But…wonder in anyone other than them it would have been extraordinary
34 right due, what belonged to him
35 sight eyes, gaze
36 Either…mine they belonged to each other/each was the source of the other’s wealth
37 Property ownership/self-possession
38 the same itself
39 Single…called i.e., their nature was both separate and united, so it could not properly be called either one or two
41 confounded confused/overthrown
42 division grow together separateness resolve into one
43 To…neither i.e., each one was nothing without the other
44 Simple a single unmixed substance compounded combined
45 it i.e., Reason true truly/faithful
46 concordant harmonious
48 what…remain separate elements remain so united
49 threne threnody, song of lamentation for the dead
51 Co-supremes joint rulers
52 THRENOS threnody, funeral lament
59 posterity offspring
60 infirmity physical inability
64 Truth…be i.e., since both truth and beauty are buried with the phoenix and the turtle, whatever appears like them cannot really be so
65 repair make their way