The phrase "a hunts-up" implied any song intended to arouse in the morning--even a love song--the name having been derived from a tune or song employed by early hunters.[402] The term occurs in "Romeo and Juliet" (iii. 5), where Juliet says to Romeo, speaking of the lark:
"Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day."
[402] Chappell's "Popular Music of the Olden Time," 2d ed. vol. i. p. 61; see Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," p. 432; see, too, Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 440.
In Drayton's "Polyolbion" (xiii.) it is used:
"No sooner doth the earth her flowery bosom brave, At such time as the year brings on the pleasant spring, But hunts-up to the morn the feather'd sylvans sing."
In Shakespeare's day it was customary to hunt as well after dinner as before, hence, in "Timon of Athens" (ii. 2), Timon says:
"So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again."
The word "embossed" was applied to a deer when foaming at the mouth from fatigue. In "Taming of the Shrew" (Ind. scene 1) we read: "the poor cur is embossed," and in "Antony and Cleopatra" (iv. 13):
"the boar of Thessaly Was never so emboss'd."
It was usual to call a pack of hounds "a cry," from the French _meute de chiens_. The term is humorously applied to any troop or company of players, as by Hamlet (iii. 2), who speaks of "a fellowship in a cry of players." In "Coriolanus" (iv. 6) Menenius says,
"You have made Good work, you and your cry."
Antony, in "Julius Cæsar" (iii. 1), alludes to the technical phrase to "let slip a dog," employed in hunting the hart. This consisted in releasing the hounds from the leash or _slip_ of leather by which they were held in hand until it was judged proper to let them pursue the animal chased.[403] In "1 Henry IV." (i. 3) Northumberland tells Hotspur:
"Before the game's afoot, thou still let'st slip."
In "Taming of the Shrew" (v. 2) Tranio says:
"O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound, Which runs himself, and catches for his master."
A sportsman's saying, applied to hounds, occurs in "2 Henry IV." (v. 3): "a' will not out; he is true bred," serving to expound Gadshill's expression, "such as can hold in," "1 Henry IV." (ii. 1).
The severity of the game laws under our early monarchs was very stringent; and a clause in the "Forest Charter"[404] grants "to an archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, when travelling through the royal forests, at the king's command, the privilege to kill one deer or two in the sight of the forester, if he was at hand; if not, they were commanded to cause a horn to be sounded, that it might not appear as if they had intended to steal the game." In "Merry Wives of Windsor" (v. 5), Falstaff, using the terms of the forest, alludes to the perquisites of the keeper. Thus he speaks of the "shoulders for the fellow of this walk," _i. e._, the keeper.