To prey at fortune.”
Falconers always flew their hawk against the wind. If flown down the wind, she seldom returned. When, therefore, a useless bird was to be dismissed, her owner flew her “down the wind;” and thenceforth she shifted for herself, and was said “to prey at fortune.”
The word “haggard,” as before observed, is of frequent occurrence throughout the Plays of Shakespeare. In the Taming of the Shrew (Act iv. Sc. 2), Hortensio speaks of Bianca as “this proud disdainful haggard.” In Much Ado about Nothing (Act iii. Sc. 1), Hero, alluding to Beatrice, says—
“I know, her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggards of the rock.”
In Twelfth Night (Act iii. Sc. 1), Viola says of the Clown:—
“This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time;