"an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, Leaving no tract behind."[208]
[206] Quoted by Harting, in "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 24.
[207] Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-Lore," pp. 75, 79.
[208] Cf. "Antony and Cleopatra," ii. 2: "This was but as a fly by an eagle."
The great age, too, of the eagle is well known; and the words of the Psalmist are familiar to most readers:
"His youth shall be renewed like the eagle's."
Apemantus, however, asks of Timon ("Timon of Athens," iv. 3):
"will these moss'd trees, That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels, And skip when thou point'st out?"
Turbervile, in his "Booke of Falconrie," 1575, says that the great age of this bird has been ascertained from the circumstance of its always building its eyrie or nest in the same place. The Romans considered the eagle a bird of good omen, and its presence in time of battle was supposed to foretell victory. Thus, in "Julius Cæsar" (v. 1) we read:
"Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands."
It was selected for the Roman legionary standard,[209] through being the king and most powerful of all birds. As a bird of good omen it is mentioned also in "Cymbeline" (i. 1):
"I chose an eagle, And did avoid a puttock;"
and in another scene (iv. 2) the Soothsayer relates how
"Last night the very gods show'd me a vision, ... thus:-- I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd From the spungy south to this part of the west, There vanish'd in the sunbeams: which portends (Unless my sins abuse my divination), Success to the Roman host."
[209] Josephus, "De Bello Judico," iii. 5.
The conscious superiority[210] of the eagle is depicted by Tamora in "Titus Andronicus" (iv. 4):
"The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby, Knowing that with the shadow of his wing, He can at pleasure stint their melody."
[210] Harting's "Ornithology of Shakespeare," p. 33.
_Goose._ This bird was the subject[211] of many quaint proverbial phrases often used in the old popular writers. Thus, a _tailor's goose_ was a jocular name for his pressing-iron, probably from its being often roasting before the fire, an allusion to which occurs in "Macbeth" (ii. 3): "come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose." The "wild-goose chase," which is mentioned in "Romeo and Juliet" (ii. 4)--"Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done"--was a kind of horse-race, which resembled the flight of wild geese. Two horses were started together, and whichever rider could get the lead, the other was obliged to follow him over whatever ground the foremost jockey chose to go. That horse which could distance the other won the race. This reckless sport is mentioned by Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," as a recreation much in vogue in his time among gentlemen. The term "Winchester goose" was a cant phrase for a certain venereal disease, because the stews in Southwark were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester, to whom Gloster tauntingly applies the term in the following passage ("1 Henry VI.," i. 3):