THE FATAL SWOOP. 39 
This passage has been differently rendered, by removing 
the punctuation between “aiery” and “towers,” and 
reading the former “airey” or “airy,” and making 
“towers” a substantive. But the meaning of the passage, 
as it stands above, seems to us sufficiently clear. 
“Aiery” is equivalent to “eyrie,” the nesting-place. 
The word occurs again in Richard IIT. (Act i. Sc. 3) — 
“Our azery buildeth in the cedar’s top ;” 
and, : 
“Your azery buildeth in our azery’s nest.” 
The verb “to tower,’ in the language of falconry, 
signifies “to .rise spirally to a height.” Compare the 
French “dour.” As a further argument, too, for reading 
“towers” as a verb, and not as a substantive, compare the 
following passage from Macbeth, which plainly shows that 
Shakespeare was not unacquainted with this word as a 
hawking term :— 
“A falcon towering in her pride of place.” 
Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 4. 
The word “souse,” above quoted, is likewise borrowed 
from the language of falconry, and, as a substantive, is 
equivalent to “swoop.” It would seem to be derived 
from the German “sausen,” which signifies to rush with 
a whistling sound like the wind; and this is certainly 
expressive of the “whish” made by the wings of a falcon 
when swooping on her prey. 
There is a good illustration of this passage in Drayton’s 
