Birds

"There is not a single cultural element of Central Asian, Eastern European or Caucasian origin in the archaeological culture of the Mittanian area [….] But there is one element novel to Iraq in Mittanian culture and art, which is later on observed in Iranian culture until the Islamisation of Iran: the peacock, one of the two elements of the 'Senmurv', the lion-peacock of the Sassanian art. The first clear pictures showing peacocks in religious context in Mesopotamia are the Nuzi cylinder seals of Mittanian time. There are two types of peacocks: the griffin with a peacock head and the peacock dancer, masked and standing beside the holy tree of life. The veneration of the peacock could not have been brought by the Mittanians from Central Asia or South-Eastern Europe; they must have taken it from the East, as peacocks are the type-bird of India and peacock dancers are still to be seen all over India. The earliest examples are known from the Harappan culture, from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa: two birds sitting on either side of the first tree of life are painted on ceramics. [….] The religious role of the peacock in India and the Indian-influenced Buddhist art in China and Japan need not be questioned" .... "The peacock was therefore subordinated to Indra and connected with the thunderbolt, so that in some Buddhist images Indra is sitting on a peacock throne. It is even possible to trace the peacock as the 'animal of the battle' in Elam till the late 3rd millennium B.C - if it is possible to identify two figured poles from Susa with 'peacock' symbols" ... "Yet the development of the Andronovo culture did not start before 1650-1600 B.C. So that we are forced to accept that the Indo-Aryans in what is now Iran, especially Eastern Iran before 1600 B.C., were under the Indian influence for such a long period that they could have taken over the peacock veneration. In that case, they could not be part of the Andronovo culture, but should have come to Iran centuries before, at the time when the Hittites came to Anatolia."

"For Sheer attractiveness,adorning ability,and adaptability,the Indian peafowl is clearly unsurpassable and incomparable.No other bird can claim such Triple'A' ranking.Regal and resplendent,yet common and plebian,it stands in a class of its own,a true symbol of India in all its beauty and colourful splendour.It is rightly the National Bird of India"

"Both the peacock and the chicken passed through [Mesopotamia] on their way westward[;] the Sumerians called the chicken ‘ the bird from Meluhha’ and the Syrians called it the ‘Akkadian bird’."

"Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."

"The very port and gait of a Duck, or Chicken, or peacock show the high idea he has entertain'd of himself; and his contempt of all others. This is the more remarkable, that in the two last species of animals, the pride always attends the beauty, and is discover'd in the male only."

"The peacock spends the day keeping watch. The holy bird, the peacock, spends the day calling "haya!". A bird red from cornelian, blue from lapis lazuli, white from chalcedony, with all kinds of gold, and leather inlaid with gold -- may the coppersmith fashion the peacock for you thus."

"Yoked to thy chariot wrought of gold, may thy two Bays with peacock tails, Convey thee hither, Steeds with their white backs, to quaff sweet juice that makes us eloquent."

"COME hither, Indra, with Bay Steeds, joyous, with tails like peacocks' plumes. Let no men cheek thy course as fowlers stay the bird: pass o’er them as o’er desert lands."

"So have the peahens three-times-seven, so have the maiden Sisters Seven Carried thy venom far away, as girls bear water in their jars."

"Or have you mark'd a partridge quake, Viewing the towering falcon nigh? She cuddles low behind the brake: Nor would she stay; nor dares she fly."

"Ah, nut-brown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!—'Tis no sport for peasants."

"I like the blackbird’s shriek, and his rush From the turnips as I pass by, And the partridge hiding her head in a bush For her young ones cannot fly."

"On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me A partridge in a pear tree."

"Like as a feareful partridge, that is fledd From the sharpe hauke which her attacked neare, And falls to ground to seeke for succor theare, Whereas the hungry spaniells she does spye, With greedy jawes her ready for to teare."

"Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest, But may imagine how the bird was dead, Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?"

"Ful many a fat partrich hadde he in muwe,"

"If [the magistrate] discovers a young man in the house of a rich and elderly woman, waxing fat, like a cock-partridge, in her service, he will remove him and give him to some marriageable maid that wants a husband."

"Partridges​ exhibit another piece of cunning, combined with affection for their young. They teach their fledglings, who are not yet able to fly, to lie on their backs when they are pursued and to keep above them as a screen some piece of turf or rubbish. The mothers meanwhile lure the hunters in another direction and divert attention to themselves, fluttering along at their feet and rising only briefly until, by making it seem that they are on the point of being captured, they draw them far away from their young."

"Partridges, when, accompanied by their young, they are being pursued, allow the fledglings to fly ahead and attempt to escape, and contrive to fix the hunter’s attention on themselves by wheeling close and, when they are almost captured, fly off and away, then again remain at rest and place themselves within the reach of the hunter’s hope, until, by so exposing themselves to danger for their nestlings’ safety, they have led on the hunters to a considerable distance."

"It is a bird of an evil and cunning disposition. In the spring they separate with singing and fighting into pairs with the females which each may happen to take. The partridge being a bird of violent passions, it tries to prevent the female from incubation by rolling and breaking the eggs, if it can find them. The female, opposing this artifice by another, lays her eggs as she runs, and often, from her desire of laying, she drops her eggs wherever she may be, if the male is present; and, that they may all be preserved, she does not return to them. If she is observed by men, she leads them away from her eggs as from her young ones, and shows herself just before them until they are drawn away from the nest."

"A Fowler caught a Partridge, and was about to kill it. The Partridge earnestly besought him to spare his life, saying, "Pray, master, permit me to live, and I will entice many Partridges to you in recompense for your mercy to me." The Fowler replied, "I shall now with the less scruple take your life: because you are willing to save it at the cost of betraying your friends and relations.""

"As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool."

"As when the dove returning bore the mark Of earth restored to the long labouring ark; The relics of mankind, secure at rest, Oped every window to receive the guest, And the fair bearer of the message bless'd."

"The thrustelcok made eek hir lay, The wode dove upon the spray She sang ful loude and cleere."

"And there my little doves did sit With feathers softly brown And glittering eyes that showed their right To general Nature's deep delight."

"Under der linden An der heide, Dâ unser zweier bette was, Dâ muget ir vinden Schône beide Gebrochen bluomen unde gras. Vor dem walde in einem tal, Tandaradei, Schône sanc diu nahtegal."

"Last night the nightingale woke me, Last night, when all was still. It sang in the golden moonlight, From out the woodland hill."

"As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made, Beasts did leap, and birds did sing, Trees did grow, and plants did spring; Every thing did banish moan, Save the nightingale alone."

"For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed, So poets live upon the living light."

"Hark! ah, the nightingale— The tawny-throated! Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!—what pain! * * * * * * Listen, Eugenia— How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again—thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!"

"En la huerta nasce la rosa: quiérome ir allá por mirar al ruiseñor cómo cantavá."

"Lend me your song, ye Nightingales! O, pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse."

"Where beneath the ivy shade, In the dew-besprinkled glade, Many a love-lorn nightingale, Warbles sweet her plaintive tale."

"The nightingale as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making. And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth."

"Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing, And stops her pipe in growth of riper days."

"Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."

"The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many things by season season'd are To their right praise, and true perfection!"

"One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody."

"O Nightingale, Cease from thy enamoured tale."

"Ἦρος ἄγγελος ἰμερόφωνος ἀήδων."

"Hark! that's the nightingale, Telling the self-same tale Her song told when this ancient earth was young: So echoes answered when her song was sung In the first wooded vale."

"The sunrise wakes the lark to sing, The moonrise wakes the nightingale. Come, darkness, moonrise, everything That is so silent, sweet, and pale: Come, so ye wake the nightingale."

"Have ye seen the ethereal blue Gently shedding silvery dew, Spangling o’er the silent green, While the nightingale, unseen, To the moon and stars, full bright, Lonesome chants the hymn of night?"

"Yon nightingale, whose strain so sweetly flows, Mourning her ravish'd young or much-loved mate, A soothing charm o'er all the valleys throws And skies, with notes well tuned to her sad state."

"John Milton, Paradise Lost (1674) Book III"

"—————As the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note."

"Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love."

"O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still; Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill While the jolly hours lead on propitious May."

"Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song."

"What bird so sings, yet does so wail? O, 'tis the ravish'd nightingale— Jug, jug, jug, jug—tereu—she cries, And still her woes at midnight rise."