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 III. (Act i. Sc. 3) :— 
“ Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top 
and, 
“Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's nest.” 
The verb “to tower,” in the language of falconry, 
signifies “to rise spirally to a height.” Compare the 
French “tour'd 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 w r ord 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 
