Euen so my selfe; throughe absence manie a yeare, A straunger meere, where I did spend my prime. Nowe, parentes loue dothe hale mee by the eare, And sayeth, come home, deferre no longer time: Wherefore, when happe, some goulden honie bringes? I will retorne, and rest my wearie winges. Ouid. 1. Pont. 4. _Quid melius Roma? Scythico quid frigore peius? Huc tamen ex illa barbarus vrbe fugit._” The parallel is from _All’s Well that Ends Well_ (act i. sc. 2, 1. 58, vol. iii. p. 119), when the King of France speaks the praise of Bertram’s father,— “‘Let me not live,’ quoth he, ‘After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses All but new things disdain; whose judgments are Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies Expire before their fashions.’ This he wish’d: I after him do after him wish too, Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home, I quickly were dissolved from my hive, To give some labourers room.” The noble art and sport of Falconry were long the recreation, and, at times, the eager pursuit of men of high birth or position. Various notices, collected by Dr. Nathan Drake, in _Shakespeare and his Times_ (vol. i. pp. 255–272), show that Falconry was— “During the reigns of Elizabeth and James, the most prevalent and fashionable of all amusements;... it descended from the nobility to the gentry and wealthy yeomanry, and no man could then have the smallest pretension to the character of a gentleman who kept not a cast of hawks.” From joining in this amusement, or from frequently witnessing it, Shakespeare gained his knowledge of the sport and of the technical terms employed in it. We do not even suppose that our pictorial illustration supplied him with suggestions, and we offer it merely to show that Emblem writers, as well as others, found in falconry the source of many a poetical expression.[158] The Italian we quote from, Giovio’s “SENTENTIOSE IMPRESE” (Lyons, 1562, p. 41), makes it a mark “of the true nobility;” but by adding, “So more important things give place,” implies that it was wrong to let mere amusement occupy the time for serious affairs. DELLA VERA. NOBILTÀ. SIC MAJORA CEDVNT [Illustration: _Giovio, 1562._] _Lo ſparbier ſol tra piu falcon portato. Franchi gli fa paſſar per ogni loco, Et par che dica all’ huom triſto & da poco, Nobil’ è quel, ch’ è di virtù dotato._ Thus we interpret the motto and the stanza,—