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Another Part of the Field. | |
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Alarum: Excursions. Enter Old TALBOT, wounded, led by a Servant. | |
| Tal. Where is my other life?—mine own is gone;— | |
| O! where’s young Talbot? where is valiant John? | |
| Triumphant death, smear’d with captivity, | 5 |
| Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee. | |
| When he perceiv’d me shrink and on my knee, | |
| His bloody sword he brandish’d over me, | |
| And like a hungry lion did commence | |
| Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience; | 10 |
| But when my angry guardant stood alone, | |
| Tendering my ruin and assail’d of none, | |
| Dizzy-ey’d fury and great rage of heart | |
| Suddenly made him from my side to start | |
| Into the clust’ring battle of the French; | 15 |
| And in that sea of blood my boy did drench | |
| His overmounting spirit; and there died | |
| My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride. | |
| |
Enter Soldiers, bearing the body of Young TALBOT. | |
| Serv. O, my dear lord! lo, where your son is borne! | 20 |
| Tal. Thou antick, death, which laugh’st us here to scorn, | |
| Anon, from thy insulting tyranny, | |
| Coupled in bonds of perpetuity, | |
| Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky, | |
| In thy despite shall ’scape mortality. | 25 |
| O! thou, whose wounds become hard-favour’d death, | |
| Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath; | |
| Brave doath by speaking whe’r he will or no; | |
| Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe. | |
| Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say, | 30 |
| Had death been French, then death had died to-day. | |
| Come, come, and lay him in his father’s arms: | |
| My spirit can no longer bear these harms. | |
| Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have, | |
| Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave. [Dies. | 35 |
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Alarums. Exeunt Soldiers and Servant, leaving the two bodies. Enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, BURGUNDY, the BASTARD OF ORLEANS, JOAN LA PUCELLE, and Forces. | |
| Char. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in | |
| We should have found a bloody day of this. | |
| Bast. How the young whelp of Talbot’s, raging-wood, | |
| Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen’s blood! | 40 |
| Joan. Once I encounter’d him, and thus I said: | |
| ‘Thou maiden youth, be vanquish’d by a maid:’ | |
| But with a proud majestical high scorn, | |
| He answer’d thus: ‘Young Talbot was not born | |
| To be the pillage of a giglot wench.’ | 45 |
| So, rushing in the bowels of the French, | |
| He left me proudly, as unworthy fight. | |
| Bur. Doubtless he would have made a noble knight; | |
| See, where he lies inhearsed in the arms | |
| Of the most bloody nurser of his harms. | 50 |
| Bast. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder, | |
| Whose life was England’s glory, Gallia’s wonder. | |
| Char. O, no! forbear; for that which we have fled | |
| During the life, let us not wrong it dead. | |
| |
Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY, attended: a French Herald preceding. | 55 |
| Lucy. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin’s tent, | |
| To know who hath obtain’d the glory of the day. | |
| Char. On what submissive message art thou sent? | |
| Lucy. Submission, Dauphin! ’tis a mere French word; | |
| We English warriors wot not what it means. | 60 |
| I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta’en, | |
| And to survey the bodies of the dead. | |
| Char. For prisoners ask’st thou? hell our prison is. | |
| But tell me whom thou seek’st. | |
| Lucy. Where is the great Alcides of the field, | 65 |
| Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury? | |
| Created, for his rare success in arms, | |
| Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence; | |
| Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield, | |
| Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton, | 70 |
| Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield, | |
| The thrice-victorious Lord of Falconbridge; | |
| Knight of the noble order of Saint George, | |
| Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece; | |
| Great mareschal to Henry the Sixth | 75 |
| Of all his wars within the realm of France? | |
| Joan. Here is a silly stately style indeed! | |
| The Turk, that two-and-fifty kingdoms hath, | |
| Writes not so tedious a style as this. | |
| Him that thou magnifiest with all these titles, | 80 |
| Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet. | |
| Lucy. Is Talbot slain, the Frenchmen’s only scourge, | |
| Your kingdom’s terror and black Nemesis? | |
| O! were mine eye-balls into bullets turn’d, | |
| That I in rage might shoot them at your faces! | 85 |
| O! that I could but call these dead to life! | |
| It were enough to fright the realm of France. | |
| Were but his picture left among you here | |
| It would amaze the proudest of you all. | |
| Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence, | 90 |
| And give them burial as beseems their worth. | |
| Joan. I think this upstart is old Talbot’s ghost, | |
| He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit. | |
| For God’s sake, let him have ’em; to keep them here | |
| They would but stink and putrefy the air. | 95 |
| Char. Go, take their bodies hence. | |
| Lucy. I’ll bear them hence: | |
| But from their ashes shall be rear’d | |
| A phœnix that shall make all France afeard. | |
| Char. So we be rid of them, do with ’em what thou wilt. | 100 |
| And now to Paris, in this conquering vein: | |
| All will be ours now bloody Talbot’s slain. [Exeunt. | |
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