The eagle is the king of birds. When it is old it becomes young again in
a very strange manner. When its eyes are darkened and its wings are
heavy with age, it seeks out a fountain clear and pure, where the water
bubbles up and shines in the clear sunlight. Above this fountain it
rises high up into the air, and fixes its eyes upon the light of the sun
and gazes upon it until the heat thereof sets on fire its eyes and
wings. Then it descends down into the fountain where the water is
clearest and brightest, and plunges and bathes three times, until it is
fresh and renewed and healed of its old age[6].
[Footnote 6: "Bated like eagles having lately bathed."--'I Henry IV.,'
iv. I.]
The eagle has such keen vision, that if it is high up among the clouds,
soaring through the air, it sees the fish swimming beneath it, in river
or sea; then down it shoots upon the fish and seizes and drags it to the
shore. Again, if unknown to the eagle its eggs should be changed and
others put into its nest,--when the young are grown, before they fly
away, it carries them up into the air when the sun is shining its
brightest. Those which can look at the rays of the sun, without
blinking, it loves and holds dear; those which cannot stand to look at
the light, it abandons, as base-born, nor troubles itself henceforth
concerning them[7].
[Footnote 7:
"Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,
Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun."--'3 Henry VI.,' ii. I.]