King John, Act v. Sc. 2.
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.” 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 FATAL SWOOP.