"You may know a gentleman by his horse, his
hawk, and his greyhound."
Old Welsh Proverb
"There be three things which go well, yea,
Which are comely in going:
A lion, which is strongest among beasts and turneth not away from any;
A greyhound; A he-goat also."
King James Bible, Proverbs 30, v 29-31
"We had a superb greyhound called Byron, that was
devoted to the General, and after successful chase he was rewarded with
many a demonstration of affection. He was the most lordly dog I think I
ever saw, powerful with deep chest, and carrying his head in a royal way.
When he started for a run, with his nostrils distended and his delicate
ears laid back on his noble head: each bound sent him flying through the
air. He hardly touched the elastic cushions of his feet to earth, before
he again was spread out like a dark straight thread. This gathering and
leaping must be seen, to realize how marvelous is the rapidity and how
the motion seems flying, almost, as the ground is scorned except at a sort
of spring bound. He trotted back to the General, if he happened to be in
advance, with the rabbit in his mouth, and, holding back his proud head,
delivered the game only to his chief."
Custer, Elizabeth B. Tenting on the Plains. Norman, University of
Oklahoma Press, 1971 (new edition). p205.
". . . .greyhounds to me were no longer associated
with hot-eyed gamblers and arc-lit tracks. They were creatures from Mallory,
the gifts of chivalric kings, prized and gilded with jewelled collars.
They were the mystic shapes in the tapestries I went to gaze at again and
again in the Cluny Museum in Paris; they leapt across the exquisite margins
of mediaeval Books of Hours; and they were there in the big print of Pisanello's
'Vision of St. Eustace' which went with me everywhere. . . . "
My Small Country Home, by Jeanine McMullen.
"A hound is of great understanding and of
great knowledge,
a hound hath great strength and great goodness,
a hound is a wise beast and a kind one."
Gaston de Foix and Edward, Duke of York, The Master of Game
"Greyhoundes he hadde, as swifte as fowels
in flight;
Of prikyng and of huntyng for the hare
Was al his lust, for no cost wolde he spare."
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, 1350
"A Grehound shold be heeded lyke a snake
And neckyd lyke a drake,
Backed lyke a beam,
Syded lyke a bream,
Footed lyke a catte,
Tayllyd lyke a ratte."
Dame Juliana Berners, Boke of St. Albans, 1486
"As when the impatient Greyhound, slipped
from far,
Bounds o'er the glad to course the fearful hare
She in her speed does all her safety lie,
And he with double speed pursues his prey,
Overruns her at the sitting turn; but licks
His chaps in vain; yet blows upon the flix.
She seeks the shelter which the neighboring cover gives,
And, gaining it, she doubts if yet she lives."
Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1st century B.C.
"I see you stand like Greyhounds in the slips
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit: and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry! England and St. George!'"
Shakespeare, Henry V
"...[a greyhound] should follow its master
and do all his commands,
being sweet, clean, joyous, willing, and gracious in all its doings..."
Gaston Phoebus, Livre de Chasse
"Of all manere of Greihoundes there byn both
good and evel;
Natheless the best hewe is rede falow, with a black moselle."
Langley, Mayster of Game, 1370
"With regard to colour, I confess to a strong
prejudice in favor of self colours -- of which
black and red (especially with black muzzles) certainly are to me by far
the most attractive."
Stonehenge, The Greyhound: being a Treatise on the Breeding, Rearing,
and Training of Greyhounds, 1875