The phrase to whistle off will be best explained by a simile in Burton, which opens his chapter on Air. "As a long-winged hawk when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in the end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a sudden."[270:D] To let a hawk down the wind, was to dismiss it as worthless.
Petruchio, soliloquising on the means which he had adopted, in order to tame his termagant bride, says emphatically,
"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."[271:A]