Swans form monogamous pair bonds that last for many years, and in some cases these bonds can last for life. Their loyalty to their mates is so storied that the image of two swans swimming with their necks entwined in the shape of a heart has become a nearly universal symbol of love. Why birds mate for life isn't as romantic as it first appears, though. Considering the time needed to migrate, establish territories, incubation, and raising their young, spending extra time to attract a mate would minimize reproductive time.
________________________What is a swan ♥song?
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Swan song" is a reference to an ancient belief that the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely mute during its lifespan, but may sing one heartbreakingly beautiful song just before it dies,the legend has remained so appealing that over the centuries it has appeared in various artistic works. Aesop's fable of "The Swan Mistaken for a Goose" alludes to it.Ovid mentions it in "The Story of Picus and Canens."
An Orlando Gibbons madrigal states the legend thus:
The silver Swan, who living had no Note,
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
"More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."
Chaucer wrote of "The Ialous swan, ayens his deth that singeth". In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Portia declaims "Let music sound while he doth make his choice;/Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,/Fading in music."
Tennyson's poem "The Dying Swan" is a poetic evocation of the beauty of the supposed song and so full of detail as to imply that he had actually heard it:
The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full and clear; ...
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,
Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;
As when a mighty people rejoice
With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold...
By extension, swan song has become an idiom referring to a final theatrical or dramatic appearance, or any final work or accomplishment
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