—this gaudy and longevous bird, that seems to contain all the wisdom of Solomon and more than the craft of Cleopatra in his eye, perched first upon England many centuries ago. Skelton speaks of him:
My name is parrot, a bird of Paradise ...
With my becke bent, my little wanton eye,
My fethers fresh, as is the emrawde grene,
About my neck a circulet, lyke the ryche rubye,
My little legges, my fete both nete and cleane....
And so, too, John Maplet, a "naturalist" who in 1567 wrote A Greene Forest:
"The Parret hath all hir whole bodie greene, saving that onely about hir necke she hath a Coller or Chaine naturally wrought like to Sinople or Vermelon. Indie hath of this kinde such as will counterfaite redily a mans speach: what wordes they heare, those commonly they pronounce. There have bene found of these that have saluted Emperours...."
But which Emperors, and when and to what end he does not relate. A parrot of price indeed would be she that had held converse with "Ozymandias, king of kings."