"The Phoenix was a mythical bird with splendid plumage, reputed to live in the Arabian desert. Fabled to be the only one of its kind, it lived for five or six centuries, after which it burned itself to death on a funeral pyre of twigs ignited by the sun and fanned by its own wings. It rose from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle, and was believed by the gods to be the symbol of hope and rebirth. "