Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyts New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Eagle
So, in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, With our own feathers, not by others hand Are we now smitten. ÆschylusFragment. 123. Plumptres trans. The idea of the eagle struck by a feather from her own wing is proverbial. See note by Porson, 139, to Euripides Medea. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Reiskes ed. 970. Eustathiusad Iliad. P. 632. 489. ScholiastOn Lucian. Vol. I. P. 794. Roger L Estrange, Fables of Æsop. 48. Eagle and the Arrow.
So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart, And wingd the shaft that quivered in his heart. ByronEnglish Bards and Scotch Reviewers. L. 826.
Tho he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban eagle bear, Sailing with supreme dominion Thro the azure deep of air. GrayProgress of Poesy.
King of the peak and glacier, King of the cold, white scalps, He lifts his head at that close tread, The eagle of the Alps. Victor HugoSwiss Mercenaries.
Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume, To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom, See their own feathers pluckd, to wing the dart, Which rank corruption destines for their heart! MooreCorruption.
Bird of the broad and sweeping wing, Thy home is high in heaven, Where wide the storms their banners fling, And the tempest clouds are driven. PercivalTo the Eagle.
I saw Joves bird, the Roman eagle, wingd From the spungy south to this part of the west, There vanishd in the sunbeams. Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 348.
He clasps the crag with hooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls: He watches from his mountain wails, And like a thunderbolt he falls. TennysonThe Eagle.
Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle. TennysonGolden Year. L. 37.
That eagles fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high. Edmund WallerTo a Lady Singing a Song of his Composing. Ep. XIV.