"the boar of Thessaly Was never so emboss'd."120. Saint Hubert's breed. Scott quotes Turbervile here: "The hounds which we call Saint Hubert's hounds are commonly all blacke, yet neuertheless, the race is so mingled at these days, that we find them of all colours. These are the hounds which the abbots of St. Hubert haue always kept some of their race or kind, in honour or remembrance of the saint, which was a hunter with S.
Eustace. Whereupon we may conceiue that (by the grace of God)all good huntsmen shall follow them into paradise."127. Quarry. The animal hunted; another technical term.
Shakespeare uses it in the sense of a heap of slaughtered game;as in Cor. i. 1. 202:
"Would the nobility lay aside their ruth, And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry With thousands of these quarter'd slaves," etc.
Cf. Longfellow, Hiawatha:
"Seldom stoops the soaring vulture O'er his quarry in the desert."130. Stock. Tree-stump. Cf. Job, xiv. 8.
133. Turn to bay. Like stand at bay, etc., a term used when the stag, driven to extremity, turns round and faces his pursuers.
Cf. Shakespeare, 1. Hen. VI. iv. 2. 52, where it is used figuratively (as in vi. 525 below):
"Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel, And make the cowards stand aloof at bay;"and T. of S. v. 2. 56: " 'T is thought your deer does hold you at a bay," etc.
137. For the death-wound, etc. Scott has the following note here: "When the stag turned to bay, the ancient hunter had the perilous task of going in upon, and killing or disabling, the desperate animal. At certain times of the year this was held particularly dangerous, a wound received from a stag's horn being then deemed poisonous, and more dangerous than one from the tusks of a boar, as the old rhyme testifies:
'If thou be hurt with hart, it bring thee to thy bier, But barber's hand will boar's hurt heal, therefore thou need'st not fear.'
At all times, however, the task was dangerous, and to be adventured upon wisely and warily, either by getting behind the stag while he was gazing on the hounds, or by watching an opportunity to gallop roundly in upon him, and kill him with the sword. See many directions to this purpose in the Booke of Hunting, chap. 41. Wilson, the historian, has recorded a providential escape which befell him in the hazardous sport, while a youth, and follower of the Earl of Essex:
'Sir Peter Lee, of Lime, in Cheshire, invited my lord one summer to hunt the stagg. And having a great stagg in chase, and many gentlemen in the pursuit, the stag took soyle. And divers, whereof I was one, alighted, and stood with swords drawne, to have a cut at him, at his coming out of the water. The staggs there being wonderfully fierce and dangerous, made us youths more eager to be at him. But he escaped us all. And it was my misfortune to be hindered of my coming nere him, the way being sliperie, by a falle; which gave occasion to some, who did not know mee, to speak as if I had falne for feare. Which being told mee, I left the stagg, and followed the gentleman who [first] spake it. But I found him of that cold temper, that it seems his words made an escape from him; as by his denial and repentance it appeared. But this made mee more violent in the pursuit of the stagg, to recover my reputation. And I happened to be the only horseman in, when the dogs sett him up at bay; and approaching near him on horsebacke, he broke through the dogs, and run at mee, and tore my horse's side with his hornes, close by my thigh.
Then I quitted my horse, and grew more cunning (for the dogs had sette him up againe), stealing behind him with my sword, and cut his hamstrings; and then got upon his back, and cut his throate;which, as I was doing, the company came in, and blamed my rashness for running such a hazard' (Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 464)."138. Whinyard. A short stout sword or knife; the same as the whinger of the Lay of Last Minstrel, v. 7:
"And whingers, now in friendship bare The social meal to part and share, Had found a bloody sheath."142. Turned him. In Elizabethan, and still more in earlier English, personal pronouns were often used reflexively; and this, like many other old constructions, is still used in poetry.
145. Trosachs. "The rough or bristled territory" (Graham); the wild district between Lochs Katrine and Vennachar. The name is now especially applied to the pass between Lochs Katrine and Achray.
147. Close couched. That is, as he lay close couched, or hidden. Such ellipses are common in poetry.
150. Amain. With main, or full force. We still say "with might and main."151. Chiding. Not a mere figurative use of chide as we now understand it (cf. 287 below), but an example of the old sense of the word as applied to any oft-repeated noise. Shakespeare uses it of the barking of dogs in M. N. D. iv. 1. 120:
"never did I hear Such gallant chiding;" of the wind, as in A. Y. L. ii. 1. 7: "And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;" and of the sea, as in 1 Hen. IV. iii. 1. 45:
"the sea That chides the banks of England;" and Hen. VIII. iii. 2. 197: "the chiding flood."163. The banks of Seine. James visited France in 1536, and sued for the hand of Magdalen, daughter of Francis I. He married her the following spring, but she died a few months later. He then married Mary of Guise, whom he had doubtless seen while in France.
166. Woe worth the chase. That is, woe be to it. This worth is from the A. S. weorthan, to become. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 6.
32:
"Wo worth the man, That first did teach the cursed steele to bight In his owne flesh, and make way to the living spright!"See also Ezek. xxx. 2.
180. And on the hunter, etc. The MS. reads:
"And on the hunter hied his pace, To meet some comrades of the chase;"and the 1st ed. retains "pace" and "chase."
