In an earlier part of the same Play York asks:
Were’t not all one, an empty eagle were set
To guard the chicken from a hungry kite,
As place Duke Humphrey for the King’s protector?
to which the Queen replies:—“So the poor chicken should be sure of death.”[73] In Winter’s Tale, when Antigonus is sent on his task to carry the child to some distant desolate spot, he takes it up, saying:
Come on, poor babe:
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,
Casting their savageness aside, have done
Like offices of pity.[74]