Which sometime they have used with fearful flight,
Make war with him that climb’d unto their nest,
Offering their own lives in their young’s defence?[6]
As a concomitant of his love of outdoor life it was natural and almost inevitable that the future dramatist should become a sportsman. There does not appear to be any good reason to question the truth of the tradition that in his youth he joined his Stratford companions in poaching Sir Thomas Lucy’s deer in Charlecote Park. When he wrote the following lines we can well imagine that he had some of his own escapades in mind:
What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,
And borne her cleanly by the keeper’s nose?[7]
Bird-Capture
Both the Poems and the Plays show him to have been well-versed in all the arts then in vogue for the capture of birds dead or alive—the use of bird-lime for the smaller kinds, the fixing of springes and gins, the spreading of nets, the employment of decoys in the shape of caged birds or of painted fruit and flowers, as well as the ordinary weapons for shooting—birding-pieces, bows and arrows, and crossbows and bolts. More especially does he appear to have mastered the whole craft of falconry, then so much in vogue; for his writings are full of the vocabulary of its technical terms. The frequency and detail of the poet’s allusions to the various methods of bird-capture suggest the experience of one who speaks from personal practice. He is fond of introducing these allusions in illustration of the plots and wiles of man with regard to his fellow-men. So many of these methods of capture have gone out of fashion that the modern reader is apt to be surprised at the constant recurrence of references to them in Shakespeare’s writings, and to forget how much more they would appeal to the imagination in the days of Elizabeth than they can do now. A few illustrations may be quoted here. Thus Lady Macduff, musing on the future of her little son, but all unsuspicious of the fate immediately impending on him, tells him
Poor bird! thou’ldst never fear the net, nor lime,
The pitfall, nor the gin.[8]