86 SPORT IN SHAKESPEARE 



is a pleasure to think that his boyish raid on 

 Sir Thomas Lucy's deer at Charlecote was 

 inspired, not by any desire for filthy lucre, 

 but by the feeling so well expressed in the 

 old song — 



" For it's my delight on a shiny night 

 In the season of the year." 



Probably the best known allusion to hunt- 

 ing in Shakespeare is that in the Alia- 

 suninier Nighf s Dream, where Theseus 

 describes his pack thus — 



" My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, 

 So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 

 With eais that sweep away the morning dew; 

 Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd hke Thessahan bulls, 

 Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells 

 Each under each. A cry more tuneable 

 Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn." 



An irreverent modern sportsman might 

 say that there was probably more cry than 



