“My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged;
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come and know her keeper’s call,
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient.”
Touchstone, too, in As You Like It (act iii. sc. 3, 1. 67, vol. ii. p. 427), hooking several comparisons together, introduces hawking among them: “As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock will be nibbling.”
Also in Macbeth (act ii. sc. 4, l. 10, vol. vii. p. 459), after “hours dreadful and things strange,” so “that darkness does the face of earth entomb, when living light should kiss it,” the Old Man declares,—
“’Tis unnatural.