Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

circle of acquaintances to illustrate the progression of love affairs. The idea of the hunt
of love and the role that birds play in it are mentioned to a certain extent in this text.
In his discussion of the role of the messenger between lovers, Ibn Hazm gives the
example of a couple who exchanged letters by fastening them to the wing of a trained
dove.63 The dove is a bird typically iconographic of love and of particular significance to
this book; its symbolism is made concrete by its being called upon to act as a lovers' go-
between.
Ibn Hazm's treatise does not show a great deal of hawking or fowling imagery,
however, the hunt of love involving birds does exist in small amounts. In the section on
"Submissiveness" that discusses the submission of the lover to the whims of the beloved,
Ibn Hazm gives advice to a lover whose beloved has lost enthusiasm for him and gotten a
different lover on the side. Given the opportunity for love, he should act like a falcon and
seize her.64
Grasp the opportunity, and know that
Like the passing of a lightning do opportunities pass by!
How many things were possible, yet I went slowly about them,
They became bitter pills for me when they had gone!
Make haste with the treasure you have found,
And grasp the prey like a falcon that is hunting!
In this case, it is the lover who is seen as the predator and the beloved who is hunted.
However, here as in later Western European works, one may find the roles of the lover
and beloved reversed-it is the lover who often portrays himself, or is portrayed, as the
victim in the hunt. In order to illustrate the agony of a lover's being forced to conceal his
love, Ibn Hazm, says that his heart flutters like a trapped partridge when his love walks
63 Ibid., 50.
64 Ibid.. 64.