“The holy eagle
Stoop’d, as to foot us: his ascension is
More sweet than our blest fields: his royal bird
Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,
As when his god is pleas’d.”
“Prune” signifies to clean and adjust the feathers, and is synonymous with plume. A word more generally used, perhaps, than either, is preen.
Cloys is, doubtless, a misprint for cleys, that is, claws. Those who have kept hawks must often have observed the habit which they have of raising one foot, and whetting the beak against it. This is the action to which Shakespeare refers. The same word occurs in Ben Jonson’s “Underwoods,” (vii. 29) thus:—
“To save her from the seize
Of vulture death, and those relentless cleys.”
The verb “to cloy” has a very different signification, namely, “to satiate,” “choke,” or “clog up.” Shakespeare makes frequent use of it.