The Hamlet Project

This is a falconer’s cry, isn’t it?
Once again, I’m struck by the intimacy
That Marcellus has with Hamlet.
Is it standard practice to call a prince
With a falconer’s cry? I’m guessing no.
The prince returns it, in kind, and calls Marcellus a bird.
There must be a kind of tether between them,
Some binding, like the leather that ties a falcon
To an arm, but loose like the faith that when the bird flies away
It will return with the binding of your voice.
The falconer sets free his bird
Secure in the knowledge that it will return
When he calls for it.
The other bird I think of is
In Romeo and Juliet when Juliet imagines Romeo were her bird
Just when she has to let him go.