Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Hawk
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 395. (“Handsaw” is given by Malone, Collier, Dyce, Clark and Wright. Others give “hernshaw.” The corruption was proverbial in Shakespeare’s time.)
When I bestride him I soar, I am a hawk.
Henry V. Act III. Sc. 7. L. 14.
No marvel, an it like your majesty,
My lord protector’s hawks do tower so well;
They know their master loves to be aloft
And bears his thoughts above his falcon’s pitch.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 9.
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch.
Henry VI. Pt. I. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 11.
Dost thou love hawking? thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark.
Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Sc. 2. L. 45.
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak
And stared with his foot on the prey.
Tennyson—The Poet’s Song.
Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque miluo,
Qui male faciunt nobis: illis qui nihil faciunt tenditur.
The nets not stretched to catch the hawk,
Or kite, who do us wrong; but laid for those
Who do us none at all.
Terence—Phormio. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 16. Colman’s trans.
She rears her young on yonder tree;
She leaves her faithful mate to mind ’em;
Like us, for fish she sails to sea,
And, plunging, shows us where to find ’em.
Yo, ho, my hearts! let’s seek the deep,
Ply every oar, and cheerly wish her,
While slow the bending net we sweep,
God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher.
Alexander Wilson—The Fisherman’s Hymn.