this passage containing two metaphorical expressions from falconry. A bird was said to be disedged when the keenness of its appetite was taken away by tiring, or feeding upon some tough or hard substance given to it for that purpose. In “3 Henry VI.” (i. 1), the king says:
“that hateful duke,
Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,
Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle
Tire on the flesh of me and of my son.”
In “Timon of Athens” (iii. 6), one of the lords says: “Upon that were my thoughts tiring, when we encountered.”
In “Venus and Adonis,” too, we find a further allusion:
“Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,
Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone,” etc.
Among other allusions to the hawk may be mentioned one in “Measure for Measure” (iii. 1):
“This outward-sainted deputy,
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i’ the head, and follies doth emmew,
As falcon doth the fowl”
—the word “emmew” signifying the place where hawks were shut up during the time they moulted. In “Romeo and Juliet” (iii. 4), Lady Capulet says of Juliet:
“To-night she’s mew’d up to her heaviness;”
and in “Taming of the Shrew” (i. 1), Gremio, speaking of Bianca to Signor Baptista, says: “Why will you mew her?”