IV. 1. 99. We leave this obscure passage as it stands in the old copies. Possibly, as Steevens suggested, a line has dropped out after wind. The phrase 'wing the wind' seems to apply to ostriches (for such is unquestionably the meaning of 'estridges') less than to any other birds. Mr Dyce quotes a passage from Claudian (In Eutropium, II. 310-313) to justify it:
'Vasta velut Libyæ venantum vocibus ales
Cum premitur, calidas cursu transmittit arenas,
Inque modum veli sinuatis flamine pennis
Pulverulenta volat.'
But this means that the bird spreads its wings like a sail bellying with the wind—a different thing from 'winging the wind.'
Malone, agreeing with Steevens that a line might have been lost, suggested the following:
'All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind
Run on, in gallant trim they now advance:
Bated like eagles, &c.'
[Note XX.]
IV. 4. 22. We leave these lines as they are in the Quartos and Folios. Pope read the passage, perhaps rightly, as prose. Steevens smoothed the lines thus:
'Gent. Why, good my lord, you need not fear; there's Douglas,
And Mortimer.
Arch. No, Mortimer's not there.'