Thomas Dyer - Folk-lore of Shakespeare

See D’Israeli’s “Curiosities of Literature,” vol. iii. p. 84.

See Thornbury’s “Shakespeare’s England,” vol. i. pp. 311-322.

Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 394.

Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 269.

Aldis Wright’s “Notes to ‘The Tempest’,” 1875, pp. 120, 121.

See Dyce’s “Shakespeare,” vol. i. p. 245.

See Strutt’s “Sports and Pastimes,” 1876, pp. 60-97, and “Book of Days,” 1863, vol. ii. pp. 211-213; Smith’s “Festivals, Games, and Amusements,” 1831, p. 174.

“A hawk full-fed was untractable, and refused the lure – the lure being a thing stuffed to look like the game the hawk was to pursue; its lure was to tempt him back after he had flown.”

In the same play (iv. 2) Hortensio describes Bianca as “this proud disdainful haggard.” See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 197; Cotgrave’s “French and English Dictionary,” sub. “Hagard;” and Latham’s “Falconry,” etc., 1658.

“To whistle off,” or dismiss by a whistle; a hawk seems to have been usually sent off in this way against the wind when sent in pursuit of prey.

Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 77; see “Twelfth Night,” ii. 5.

The use of the word is not quite the same here, because the voyage was Hamlet’s “proper game,” which he abandons. “Notes to Hamlet,” Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 205.

See Dyce’s “Glossary,” p. 456; Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 39; Tuberville’s “Booke of Falconrie,” 1611, p. 53.

Also in i. 2 we read:

“And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, Show’d like a rebel’s whore.”

Some read “quarry;” see “Notes to Macbeth.” Clark and Wright, p. 77. It denotes the square-headed bolt of a cross-bow; see Douce’s “Illustrations,” 1839, p. 227; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 206.

See Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” book i. canto xi. l. 18:

“Low stooping with unwieldy sway.”

Ed. Dyce, 1857, p. 5.

See “3 Henry VI.” i. 1.

A quibble is perhaps intended between bate, the term of falconry, and abate, i. e. , fall off, dwindle. “Bate is a term in falconry, to flutter the wings as preparing for flight, particularly at the sight of prey.” In ‘1 Henry IV.’ (iv. 1):

“‘All plumed like estridges, that with the wind Bated, like eagles having lately bathed.’”

– Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 60.

“Unmann’d” was applied to a hawk not tamed.

See Singer’s “Notes to Shakespeare,” 1875, vol. x. p. 86; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 448.

See passage in “Taming of the Shrew,” iv. 1, already referred to, p. 122.

Also in same play, i. 3.

Turbervile, in his “Booke of Falconrie,” 1575, gives some curious directions as “how to seele a hawke;” we may compare similar expressions in “Antony and Cleopatra,” iii. 13; v. 2.

Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. pp. 777, 778; cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, “Philaster,” v. 1.

Imp, from Anglo-Saxon, impan , to graft. Turbervile has a whole chapter on “The way and manner how to ympe a hawke’s feather, howsoever it be broken or bruised.”

Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakspeare,” p. 72.

The reading of the folios here is stallion; but the word wing, and the falconer’s term checks , prove that the bird must be meant. See Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 832.

See kestreland sparrow-hawk.

“Notes to Hamlet,” Clark and Wright, 1876, p. 159.

Ray’s “Proverbs,” 1768, p. 196.

Quoted in “Notes to Hamlet,” by Clark and Wright, p. 159; see Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 416.

That is, made by art: the creature not of nature, but of painting; cf. “Taming of the Shrew,” iv. 3; “The Tempest,” ii. 2.

Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 482.

Harting’s “Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 74.

“Notes,” vol. iii. pp. 357, 358.

“Description of England,” vol. i. p. 162.

“Glossary to Shakespeare,” p. 88.

Sir Thomas Browne’s “Vulgar Errors,” bk. iii. chap. 10.

Also to the buzzard, which see, p. 100.

Singer’s “Shakespeare,” vol. iv. p. 67.

“Glossary,” p. 243.

“Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 495; see Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” 2d edition, vol. ii. p. 482.

Ray’s “Proverbs,” 1768, p. 199.

Cf. “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (iv. 1). “the morning lark;” “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 5), “the lark, the herald of the morn.”

Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 886; Douce’s “Illustrations of Shakespeare,” 1839, p. 217.

Chambers’s “Popular Rhymes of Scotland,” 1870, p. 192.

See “English Folk-Lore,” p. 81.

Henderson’s “Folk-Lore of Northern Counties,” p. 127.

Thorpe’s “Northern Mythology,” vol. ii. p. 34; Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, pp. 215, 216; see also Harland and Wilkinson’s “Lancashire Folk-Lore,” 1867, pp. 143, 145.

“Atmospherical Researches,” 1823, p. 262.

Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, 1852, vol. i. p. 378.

See “Book of Days,” vol. i. p. 515.

Southey’s “Commonplace Book.” 5th series. 1851, p. 305.

Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” bk. vi. ll. 455-676; “Titus Andronicus,” iv. 1.

Cf. “Lucrece,” ll. 1079, 1127.

See Yarrell’s “History of British Birds,” 1856, vol. i. p. 30; Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. ii. p. 620; also Pennant’s “British Zoology;” see Peele’s Play of the “Battle of Alcazar” (ii. 3), 1861, p. 28.

Called estridge in “1 Henry IV.” iv. 1.

See Brand’s “Pop. Antiq.,” 1849, vol. iii. p. 365.

“Animal Kingdom,” 1829, vol. viii. p. 427.

See Sir Thomas Browne’s Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 334-337.