Then must you match the lion’s with the deer’s.
So when two eagle’s thighs have passed her beak,
Enough!—unless you her destruction seek.
The next time you go out, fly your hawk at any species of eagle you like.
Now you must understand that although the hawk does, temporarily, cripple the eagle, yet it is owing to the screams and yells of the riding party that the eagle loses its wits and gets taken. If you want to test this, fly your hawk at an eagle as though you were flying a goshawk at a partridge, and ride slowly and quietly after the quarry. Note how the eagle will with its foot sweep the hawk off its back while exclaiming:—
“Thus does wise heaven grant sustenance to fools
That countless wise are filled thereat with wonder.”[489]
The awe and fear inspired by man is greater than that inspired by any animal, and especially terrifying is the human voice. God has given to all his creatures, birds, beasts, etc., a weapon of defence for their safety, and man’s weapons are his voice and the dread his presence inspires; every thing that creeps, or crawls, or flies, even the lion, flees from the sound[490] and terror of man—how much more so the eagle. The eagle is captured only by the artifice of the falconer: for what sort of a dog is the chark͟h to master the eagle?
The falconer by art and skill can show
That feeble chark͟hs can lay great eagles low.