the allusion is, says Staunton, to this method employed to tame or “reclaim” hawks.
Again, in “Othello” (iii. 3),[239] Iago exclaims:
“She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,
To seel her father’s eyes up close as oak;”
in allusion to the practice of seeling a hawk, or sewing up her eyelids, by running a fine thread through them, in order to make her tractable and endure the hood of which we have already spoken.[240] King Henry (“2 Henry IV.” iii. 1), in his soliloquy on sleep, says:
“Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge.”
In Spenser’s “Fairy Queen” (I. vii. 23), we read:
“Mine eyes no more on vanity shall feed,
But sealed up with death, shall have their deadly meed.”
It was a common notion that if a dove was let loose with its eyes so closed it would fly straight upwards, continuing to mount till it fell down through mere exhaustion.[241]
In “Cymbeline” (iii. 4), Imogen, referring to Posthumus, says:
“I grieve myself
To think, when thou shalt be disedged by her
That now thou tir’st on,”—