“How high a pitch his resolution soars!”
Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1.
“Tower.”—A common expression in falconry, signifying to rise spirally to a height. Compare the French “tour.” The word occurs again in Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 4, with reference to a fact which we might well be excused for doubting, did we not know that it was related as an unusual circumstance:—
“On Tuesday last,
A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.”
THE FALCON AND TERCEL.
Many of the incidents connected with Duncan’s death are not to be found in the narrative of that event, but are taken from the chronicler’s account of King Duffe’s murder. Among the prodigies there mentioned is the one referred to by Shakespeare. “Monstrous sightes also, that were seene without the Scottishe kingdome that year, were these.… There was a sparhauke also strangled by an owle.” We have known a Tawny Owl to kill and devour a Kestrel which had been kept in the same aviary with it.
By “tow’ring in her pride of place,” is here understood to mean circling at her highest point of elevation. So in Massinger’s play of The Guardian, Act i. Sc. 2:—
“Then for an evening flight