Chase

A chase is an event involving the physical pursuit of a person or thing to be captured - usually called the "quarry". In hunting, the subject of the chase is the animal being hunted, if that animal runs and must be pursued (as opposed to being shot from a blind). The term is also used with respect to the pursuit of a human, most often when fleeing pursuit by authorities seeking to arrest or execute that person.

Quotes

• He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,
  Who, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes,
  And what not, though he rode beyond all price,
  Ask'd next day, "if men ever hunted twice?"
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XIV, Stanza 35.

• Together let us beat this ample field,
  Try what the open, what the covert yield.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 9.

• Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began,
  A mighty hunter, and his prey was man.
  • Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest (1713), line 61.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 107-108.

• They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
  They pursued it with forks and hope;
  They threatened its life with a railway-share;
  They charmed it with smiles and soap.
  • Lewis Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark, Fit 5.

• The dusky night rides down the sky
  And ushers in the morn:
  The hounds all join in glorious cry,
  The huntsman winds his horn;
  And a-hunting we will go.
  • Henry Fielding, And a-Hunting We Will Go.

• The woods were made for the hunter of dreams,
  The brooks for the fishers of song;
  To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
  The streams and the woods belong.
  There are thoughts that moan from the soul of pine
  And thoughts in a flower bell curled;
  And the thoughts that are blown with scent of the fern
  Are as new and as old as the world.
  • Sam Walter Foss, Bloodless Sportsman.

• Soon as Aurora drives away the night,
  And edges eastern clouds with rosy light,
  The healthy huntsman, with the cheerful horn,
  Summons the dogs, and greets the dappled morn.
  • John Gay, Rural Sports (1713), Canto II, line 93.

• Love's torments made me seek the chase;
  Rifle in hand, I roam'd apace.
  Down from the tree, with hollow scoff,
  The raven cried: "Head-off! head off!"
  • Heinrich Heine, Book of Songs, Youthful Sorrows, No. 8.

• Of horn and morn, and hark and bark,
  And echo's answering sounds,
  All poets' wit hath ever writ
  In dog-rel verse of hounds.
  • Thomas Hood, Epping Hunt, Stanza 10.

• D'ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay?
  D'ye ken John Peel at the break of the day?
  D'ye ken John Peel when he's far, far away,
  With his hounds and his horn in the morning?
  • John Peel, Old Hunting Song. ("Coat so gray," said to be in the original).

• It (hunting) was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.
  • Samuel Johnson, Johnsoniana.

• With a hey, ho, chevy!
  Hark forward, hark forward, tantivy!
  Hark, hark, tantivy!
  This day a stag must die.
  • John O'Keefe, song in Czar Peter, Act I, scene 4.

• My hoarse-sounding horn
  Invites thee to the chase, the sport of kings.
  • William Somerville, The Chase.