Turtle Dove
Painting by Missy Dunaway. Created with acrylic ink on paper. 30x22 inches (76x56 cm)
Painting Key
Fauna: 3 Turtle doves (Streptopelia turtur)
Flora: Alfalfa, barley, common sunflower, fumitory, grass, mustard, wheat
Objects: 2 Turtle dove eggs, 10 turtle dove feathers, 1 phoenix feather, the artist’s wedding bands
Plants mentioned by Shakespeare: Barley (Hordeum vulgare), fumitory (Fumaria officinalis), grass (Brachypodium pinnatum), mustard (Sinapis alba), wheat (Triticum aestivum)
Shakespeare’s Turtle Dove
Occurrences in text: 14 “turtle” and 19 “dove”
Plays: Coriolanus, Hamlet, 1 Henry VI, Henry VIII, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Rape of Lucrece, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Troilus and Cressida, The Winter’s Tale
Poems: “The Passionate Pilgrim,” “The Phoenix and Turtle,” “Sonnet 113,” “Venus and Adonis”
Name as it appears in the text: “turtle-dove," "turtle," "dove"
MERCUTIO: Romeo! Humors! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh.
Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied.
Cry but "Ay me," pronounce but "love" and
"dove."
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim
When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid.—Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene 1, line 9)
The dove is Shakespeare’s most-referenced bird, appearing forty-five times across his plays and poems. However, the word dove may be applied to three distinct species: the rock dove, the African collared dove, and the turtle dove. Context distinguishes them. The rock dove, or pigeon, is a utilitarian bird associated with sending messages and falconry prey.[1] The African collared dove, known at the time as the Barbary dove, symbolizes peace and reconciliation.[2] Whenever Shakespeare links a dove with love or devotion, he almost certainly means the turtle dove.[3]
Geoffrey Chaucer praised "the wedded turtel with hir herte trew," and Shakespeare carried this image into the seventeenth century, using the turtle dove as a synonym for a devoted lover. This metaphor is rooted in the turtle dove’s natural behaviors. It is a monogamous bird with a gentle disposition and pastel-colored plumage. Even its name echoes its soft, purring "turr-turr" call. So mild was its temperament that early modern naturalists believed it lacked "gall," or bile, then thought to be the source of anger and aggression.[4] In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio is determined to make his willful bride as "modest as the dove."
In nature, the turtle dove mourns the loss of its partner and has been observed returning to its partner’s death site to continue caring for its deceased mate.[5] This poignant behavior likely inspired a popular myth that a widowed turtle dove would refuse to drink from a pool of still water because its reflection would elicit memories of its late beloved. In the closing scene of The Winter’s Tale, the grief-stricken Paulina compares herself to a widowed turtle dove, as she is still mourning Antigonus, her late husband:
PAULINA: There’s time enough for that,
Lest they desire upon this push to trouble
Your joys with like relation. Go together,
You precious winners all. Your exultation
Partake to everyone. I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some withered bough and there
My mate, that’s never to be found again,
Lament till I am lost.The Winter’s Tale (Act 5, Scene 3, line 162)
This page from Minerua Britanna (1612) by Henry Peacham depicts the widowed turtle dove, who “solitarie by herselfe remains, recording in most dolefull wife her woe, letting the pleasures, of the season goe.” Folger Shakespeare Library
In its most remarkable appearance, the turtle dove plays the tragic, romantic lead as a titular character in "The Phoenix and the Turtle." This curious narrative poem is one of Shakespeare’s strangest, and perhaps the strongest indicator that he had a special interest in birds. The poem is devoid of any humans and is populated entirely by feathered creatures. It depicts a procession of birds attending a joint funeral for the phoenix and turtle dove, two chaste lovers whose death also ends grace, truth, and beauty.
The Phoenix and the Turtle (line 49)
"Whereupon it made this threne
To the Phoenix and the Dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene:
"Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos'd, in cinders lie.
Death is now the Phoenix' nest,
And the Turtle's loyal breast "
The turtle dove is commonly cast in Shakespeare’s romances and tragedies to represent the devotion between star-crossed couples, such as Romeo and Juliet or Troilus and Cressida. However, it also appears in the comedies. The earnest love between two turtle doves underscores the questionable ties between less admirable couples. Mistress Page of The Merry Wives of Windsor joked that it would be easier to find "twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man."
The turtle dove's associations with love stretch back to Greek and Roman mythology, where it served as a companion to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, and her Roman counterpart, Venus. In Shakespeare's narrative poem "Venus and Adonis," two dainty turtle doves draw Venus's chariot, an image found throughout early modern emblem books. The turtle dove’s diet of wildflower seeds and particular preference for fumitory, an indicator of fertile lands, also tied it to Demeter, the Greek goddess of grain and harvest.
Venus’s mighty carriage is drawn by two dainty turtle doves, as illustrated in Amorum emblemata (1608) by Otto Van Veen. Folger Shakespeare Library
Few images in Shakespeare's canon do so much work with so little variation. Set beside a phoenix, the turtle dove becomes a myth. Set beside a philanderer, it becomes a punchline. This range demonstrates one of Shakespeare’s literary achievements. He does not need a new symbol for every reference to love, only new company for the turtle dove to keep.
Endnotes
[1] Harting, J., The Birds of Shakespeare, (London: John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row, 1871), 55.
[2] Ibid., 191.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Browne, Sir Thomas, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths, 4th edn (London: Printed for Edward Dod, and are to be sold by Andrew Crook at the Green Dragon in Paul's Church-yard, 1658).
[5] Kocher, J. "Image of Dove Appearing to Grieve Over Death of Mate in Wyoming Goes Viral." Cowboy State Daily, June 8, 2021. Accessed March 29, 2022.