"If, then, we shall shake off our slavish yoke, Imp out our drooping country's broken wing."
[242] Imp, from Anglo-Saxon, _impan_, to graft. Turbervile has a whole chapter on "The way and manner how to ympe a hawke's feather, howsoever it be broken or bruised."
So Massinger, in his "Renegado" (v. 8), makes Asambeg say:
"strive to imp New feathers to the broken wings of time."
Hawking was sometimes called birding.[243] In the "Merry Wives of Windsor" (iii. 3) Master Page says: "I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast; after, we'll a-birding together, I have a fine hawk for the bush." In the same play (iii. 5) Dame Quickly, speaking of Mistress Ford, says: "Her husband goes this morning a-birding;" and Mistress Ford says (iv. 2): "He's a-birding, sweet Sir John." The word hawk, says Mr. Harting, is invariably used by Shakespeare in its generic sense; and in only two instances does he allude to a particular species. These are the kestrel and sparrow-hawk. In "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5) Sir Toby Belch, speaking of Malvolio, as he finds the letter which Maria has purposely dropped in his path, says:
"And with what wing the staniel[244] checks at it"
--staniel being a corruption of stangdall, a name for the kestrel hawk.[245] "Gouts" is the technical term for the spots on some parts of the plumage of a hawk, and perhaps Shakespeare uses the word in allusion to a phrase in heraldry. Macbeth (ii. 1), speaking of the dagger, says:
"I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood."
[243] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakspeare," p. 72.
[244] The reading of the folios here is stallion; but the word wing, and the falconer's term _checks_, prove that the bird must be meant. See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 832.
_Heron._ This bird was frequently flown at by falconers. Shakespeare, in "Hamlet" (ii. 2), makes Hamlet say, "I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw;" handsaw being a corruption of "heronshaw," or "hernsew," which is still used, in the provincial dialects, for a heron. In Suffolk and Norfolk it is pronounced "harnsa," from which to "handsaw" is but a single step.[246] Shakespeare here alludes to a proverbial saying, "He knows not a hawk from a handsaw."[247] Mr. J. C. Heath[248] explains the passage thus: "The expression obviously refers to the sport of hawking. Most birds, especially one of heavy flight like the heron, when roused by the falconer or his dog, would fly down or with the wind, in order to escape. When the wind is from the north the heron flies towards the south, and the spectator may be dazzled by the sun, and be unable to distinguish the hawk from the heron. On the other hand, when the wind is southerly the heron flies towards the north, and it and the pursuing hawk are clearly seen by the sportsman, who then has his back to the sun, and without difficulty knows the hawk from the hernsew."