usually pl. -bands. [See SWADDLING vbl. sb. and BAND sb.1, BOND sb.1] = next.
α. a. 1425. [see β, quot. 13(?)].
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., 300. Their king (as yet an infant in his swathling bands).
β. 13[?]. Cursor M., 1343 (Gött.). A new-born child … bunden wid a suadiling band [a. 1425 (Trin. MS.) swaþeling bonde].
1560. Bible (Genev.), Job xxxviii. 9. When I made the cloudes as a couering thereof, and darkenes as the swadeling bandes thereof.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. x. 65. As thou slepst in tender swadling band.
1629. Milton, Christ’s Nativ., 228. Our Babe to shew his Godhead true, Can in his swadling bands controul the damned crew.
1717. Prior, Alma, II. 389. One People from their swadling Bands Releas’d their Infants Feet and Hands.
1789. W. Buchan, Dom. Med., i. (1790), 11. Though many of them [sc. brute animals] are extremely delicate when they come into the world, yet we never find them grow crooked for want of swaddling bands.
b. fig. and allusively.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., I. i. (Arb.), 7. Then foule faced Vice was in his swadling bands.
1663. Patrick, Parab. Pilgr., xxix. (1687), 347. The Spirit of Man only should … continue a Child, and never be unloosed from its swadling-bands.
1815. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., iii. (1818), I. 69. Having laid aside its mask, and cast off its swaddling bands,… it is now become a true representative or image of its species.
1837. J. Chandler, Hymns, 2. When from the swaddling bands of shade Sprang forth the world so fair.
1845. R. W. Hamilton, Pop. Educ., i. (1846), 14. The swaddling-bands of a mistaken kindness … only cramp its energies.
1875. E. White, Life in Christ, II. ix. (1878), 87. Darkness is necessarily the swaddling-band of mind awakening from nothingness.
