King Henry VI, Part I
| ACT II SCENE I | Before Orleans. | |
| [Enter a Sergeant of a band with two Sentinels] | ||
| Sergeant | Sirs, take your places and be vigilant: | |
| If any noise or soldier you perceive | ||
| Near to the walls, by some apparent sign | ||
| Let us have knowledge at the court of guard. | ||
| First Sentinel | Sergeant, you shall. | 5 |
| [Exit Sergeant] | ||
| Thus are poor servitors, | ||
| When others sleep upon their quiet beds, | ||
| Constrain’d to watch in darkness, rain and cold. | ||
| [ Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and Forces, with scaling-ladders, their drums beating a dead march ] | ||
| TALBOT | Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy, | |
| By whose approach the regions of Artois, | 10 | |
| Wallon and Picardy are friends to us, | ||
| This happy night the Frenchmen are secure, | ||
| Having all day caroused and banqueted: | ||
| Embrace we then this opportunity | ||
| As fitting best to quittance their deceit | 15 | |
| Contrived by art and baleful sorcery. | ||
| BEDFORD | Coward of France! how much he wrongs his fame, | |
| Despairing of his own arm’s fortitude, | ||
| To join with witches and the help of hell! | ||
| BURGUNDY | Traitors have never other company. | 20 |
| But what’s that Pucelle whom they term so pure? | ||
| TALBOT | A maid, they say. | |
| BEDFORD | A maid! and be so martial! | |
| BURGUNDY | Pray God she prove not masculine ere long, | |
| If underneath the standard of the French | 25 | |
| She carry armour as she hath begun. | ||
| TALBOT | Well, let them practise and converse with spirits: | |
| God is our fortress, in whose conquering name | ||
| Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks. | ||
| BEDFORD | Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee. | 30 |
| TALBOT | Not all together: better far, I guess, | |
| That we do make our entrance several ways; | ||
| That, if it chance the one of us do fail, | ||
| The other yet may rise against their force. | ||
| BEDFORD | Agreed: I’ll to yond corner. | 35 |
| BURGUNDY | And I to this. | |
| TALBOT | And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave. | |
| Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right | ||
| Of English Henry, shall this night appear | ||
| How much in duty I am bound to both. | 40 | |
| Sentinels | Arm! arm! the enemy doth make assault! | |
| [Cry: ‘St. George,’ ‘A Talbot.’] | ||
| [ The French leap over the walls in their shirts. Enter, several ways, the BASTARD OF ORLEANS, ALENCON, and REIGNIER, half ready, and half unready ] | ||
| ALENCON | How now, my lords! what, all unready so? | |
| BASTARD OF ORLEANS | Unready! ay, and glad we ‘scaped so well. | |
| REIGNIER | ‘Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds, | |
| Hearing alarums at our chamber-doors. | 45 | |
| ALENCON | Of all exploits since first I follow’d arms, | |
| Ne’er heard I of a warlike enterprise | ||
| More venturous or desperate than this. | ||
| BASTARD OF ORLEANS | I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell. | |
| REIGNIER | If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him. | 50 |
| ALENCON | Here cometh Charles: I marvel how he sped. | |
| BASTARD OF ORLEANS | Tut, holy Joan was his defensive guard. | |
| [Enter CHARLES and JOAN LA PUCELLE] | ||
| CHARLES | Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame? | |
Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal, | ||
| Make us partakers of a little gain, | 55 | |
| That now our loss might be ten times so much? | ||
| JOAN LA PUCELLE | Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend! | |
| At all times will you have my power alike? | ||
| Sleeping or waking must I still prevail, | ||
| Or will you blame and lay the fault on me? | 60 | |
| Improvident soldiers! had your watch been good, | ||
| This sudden mischief never could have fall’n. | ||
| CHARLES | Duke of Alencon, this was your default, | |
| That, being captain of the watch to-night, | ||
| Did look no better to that weighty charge. | 65 | |
| ALENCON | Had all your quarters been as safely kept | |
| As that whereof I had the government, | ||
| We had not been thus shamefully surprised. | ||
| BASTARD OF ORLEANS | Mine was secure. | |
| REIGNIER | And so was mine, my lord. | 70 |
| CHARLES | And, for myself, most part of all this night, | |
| Within her quarter and mine own precinct | ||
| I was employ’d in passing to and fro, | ||
| About relieving of the sentinels: | ||
| Then how or which way should they first break in? | 75 | |
| JOAN LA PUCELLE | Question, my lords, no further of the case, | |
| How or which way: ’tis sure they found some place | ||
| But weakly guarded, where the breach was made. | ||
| And now there rests no other shift but this; | ||
| To gather our soldiers, scatter’d and dispersed, | 80 | |
| And lay new platforms to endamage them. | ||
| [ Alarum. Enter an English Soldier, crying ‘A Talbot! a Talbot!’ They fly, leaving their clothes behind ] | ||
| Soldier | I’ll be so bold to take what they have left. | |
| The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword; | ||
| For I have loaden me with many spoils, | ||
| Using no other weapon but his name. | 85 | |
| [Exit] | ||
Continue to 1 Henry VI, Act 2, Scene 2