King Henry VI, Part I
ACT IV SCENE VII | A field of battle. | |
[Alarum: excursions. Enter TALBOT led by a Servant] | ||
TALBOT | Where is my other life? mine own is gone; | |
O, where’s young Talbot? where is valiant John? | ||
Triumphant death, smear’d with captivity, | ||
Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee: | ||
When he perceived me shrink and on my knee, | 5 | |
His bloody sword he brandish’d over me, | ||
And, like a hungry lion, did commence | ||
Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience; | ||
But when my angry guardant stood alone, | ||
Tendering my ruin and assail’d of none, | 10 | |
Dizzy-eyed fury and great rage of heart | ||
Suddenly made him from my side to start | ||
Into the clustering battle of the French; | ||
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench | ||
His over-mounting spirit, and there died, | 15 | |
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride. | ||
Servant | O, my dear lord, lo, where your son is borne! | |
[Enter Soldiers, with the body of JOHN TALBOT] | ||
TALBOT | Thou antic death, which laugh’st us here to scorn, | |
Anon, from thy insulting tyranny, | ||
Coupled in bonds of perpetuity, | 20 | |
Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky, | ||
In thy despite shall ‘scape mortality. | ||
O, thou, whose wounds become hard-favour’d death, | ||
Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath! | ||
Brave death by speaking, whether he will or no; | 25 | |
Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe. | ||
Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say, | ||
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. | 30 | |
Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have, | ||
Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave. | ||
[Dies] | ||
[ Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BURGUNDY, BASTARD OF ORLEANS, JOAN LA PUCELLE, and forces ] | ||
CHARLES | Had York and Somerset brought rescue in, | |
We should have found a bloody day of this. | ||
BASTARD OF ORLEANS | How the young whelp of Talbot’s, raging-wood, | 35 |
Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen’s blood! | ||
JOAN LA PUCELLE | 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 | 40 | |
To be the pillage of a giglot wench:’ | ||
So, rushing in the bowels of the French, | ||
He left me proudly, as unworthy fight. | ||
BURGUNDY | Doubtless he would have made a noble knight; | |
See, where he lies inhearsed in the arms | 45 | |
Of the most bloody nurser of his harms! | ||
BASTARD OF ORLEANS | Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder | |
Whose life was England’s glory, Gallia’s wonder. | ||
CHARLES | O, no, forbear! for that which we have fled | |
During the life, let us not wrong it dead. | 50 | |
[ Enter Sir William LUCY, attended; Herald of the French preceding ] | ||
LUCY | Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin’s tent, | |
To know who hath obtained the glory of the day. | ||
CHARLES | On what submissive message art thou sent?![]() | |
LUCY | Submission, Dauphin! ’tis a mere French word; | |
We English warriors wot not what it means. | 55 | |
I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta’en | ||
And to survey the bodies of the dead. | ||
CHARLES | For prisoners ask’st thou? hell our prison is. | |
But tell me whom thou seek’st. | ||
LUCY | But where’s the great Alcides of the field, | 60 |
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, | 65 | |
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 marshal to Henry the Sixth | 70 | |
Of all his wars within the realm of France? | ||
JOAN LA PUCELLE | 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 | 75 | |
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 eyeballs into bullets turn’d, | ||
That I in rage might shoot them at your faces! | 80 | |
O, that I could but call these dead to life! | ||
It were enough to fright the realm of France: | ||
Were but his picture left amongst you here, | ||
It would amaze the proudest of you all. | ||
Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence | 85 | |
And give them burial as beseems their worth. | ||
JOAN LA PUCELLE | 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. | 90 | |
CHARLES | Go, take their bodies hence. | |
LUCY | I’ll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be rear’d | |
A phoenix that shall make all France afeard. | ||
CHARLES | So we be rid of them, do with ’em what thou wilt. | |
And now to Paris, in this conquering vein: | 95 | |
All will be ours, now bloody Talbot’s slain. | ||
[Exeunt] |
Continue to 1 Henry VI, Act 5, Scene 1