The king of the birds …

… Marly Youmans / The Palace at 2:00 a.m. / poems, stories, novels: Peacock-thoughts for a Pandemic Sunday. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Paintings or mosaic work with peacocks appears as early as the third century A. D. in Roman catacombs. Part of this seems to be bound to the earlier idea that the flesh of the bird does not decay and holds some sort of immortality; that thought becomes a symbol wandering into regions of eternal life and resurrection. Part must be bound to the idea of leaving the earthly body and receiving a glorified body and soul, for the peacock in his fully revealed green and bronze and cobalt pomp and magnificence is an image of radiance and splendor. This sumptuousness finds its culmination in the peacock as symbol of Christ, who did not decay in the tomb and is transfigured and glorified.

Is the hemlock tree ordinarily confused with the poison hemlock that killed Socrates?