For living idly here, in pomp and ease, pay: 3 Mess. O no, he lives; but is took prisoner, And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford : Most of the rest slaughter'd, or took, likewise. Bed. His ransome there is none but I shall I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne, His crown shall be the ransome of my friend; Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.-Farewell, my masters; to my task will I; Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make, To keep our great Saint George's feast withal : Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take, Whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake. 3 Mess. So you had need; for Orleans is besieg'd; The English army is grown weak and faint: And hardly keeps his men from mutiny, Exe. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn; Either to quell the Dauphin utterly, Or bring him in obedience to your yoke. Bed. I do remember it; and here take leave, To go about my preparation. [Exit. Glo. I'll to the Tower, with all the haste I can, To view the artillery and munition; And then I will proclaim young Henry king. [Exit. Exe. To Eltham will I, where the young king is, Being ordain'd his special governor; And for his safety there I'll best devise. [Exit. Win. Each hath his place and function to attend : I am left out for me nothing remains. But long I will not be Jack-out-of-office; [Exit. Scene closes. SCENE II. France. Before Orleans. Enter CHARLES, with his Forces; ALENÇON, Char. Mars his true moving1, even as in the 1 So in the earth, to this day is not known: Alen. They want their porridge, and their fat bull- Either they must be dieted like mules, And have their provender tied to their mouths, Reig. Let's raise the siege; Why live we idly here? 12 The old copy reads send, the present reading was proposed by Mason, who observes that the king was not at this time in the power of the cardinal, but under the care of the duke of Exeter. The second article of accusation brought against the bishop by the duke of Gloucester is 'that he purposed and disposed him to set hand on the king's person, and to have removed him from Eltham to Windsor, to the intent to put him in governance as him list.' Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 591. The necessity of the rhime, and the disagreeable clash of the words intend and send, also show the propriety of the alteration. You are as ignorant in the true movings of my muse as the astronomers are in the true movings of Mars, which to this day they could never attain to.' Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, by Nash, 1596, Preface. Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear: Char. Who ever saw the like? what men have I?— Dogs! cowards! dastards!—I would ne'er have fled, But that they left me 'midst my enemies. Reig. Salisbury is a desperate homicide; Alen. Froissard, a countryman of ours, records, Char. Let's leave this town; for they are hairbrain'd slaves, And hunger will enforce them to be more eager: 2 i. e. the prey for which they are hungry. 3 These were two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are the theme of the old romances. From the equally doughty and unheard of exploits of these champions, arose the saying of Giving a Rowland for an Oliver, for giving a person as good as he brings. 4 Of old I know them; rather with their teeth Enter the Bastard of Orleans. Bast. Where's the prince Dauphin, I have news for him. Char. Bastard 5 of Orleans, thrice welcome to us. Bast. Methinks, your looks are sad, your cheer 6 appall❜d; Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence? A holy maid hither with me I bring, And drive the English forth the bounds of France. 4 By gimmals, gimbols, gimmers, or gimowes, any kind of device or machinery producing motion was meant. Baret has the gimew or hinge of a door.' There were gimmal bits and gimmal rings, &c.: 'My acts are like the motional gymmals Fix'd in a watch.' Vow Breaker, 1636. the famous Kentish idol moved her eyes and hands by those secret gimmers which now every puppet play can imitate.' Bishop Hall, Epist. vi. Dec. 1. 5 Bastard was not in former times a title of reproach. Hurd, in his Letters on Chivalry and Romance, makes it one of the circumstances of agreement between Heroic and Gothic manners, 'that bastardy was in credit with both.' It has, however, been disputed whether bastardy was or was not a disgrace among the ancients. See the subject fully discussed in Potter's Antiquities of Greece, vol. ii. p. 337, edit. 1715. 6 Cheer in this instance means heart or courage, as in the expression be of good cheer.' Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome7; Char. Go, call her in: [Exit Bastard.] But, first to try her skill, Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place: Question her proudly, let thy looks be stern:By this mean shall we sound what skill she hath. [Retires. Enter LA PUCELLE, Bastard of Orleans, and Others. Reig. Fair maid, is't thou wilt do these wondrous feats? Puc. Reignier, is't thou that thinkest to beguile me? Where is the Dauphin?-come, come from behind; Heaven, and our Lady gracious, hath it pleas'd Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs, 7 Warburton says that there were no nine sybils of Rome, it is a mistake for the nine Sibylline Oracles brought to one of the Tarquins. But the poet followed the popular books of his day, which say that the ten sybils were women that had the spirit of prophecy (enumerating them) and that they prophesied of Christ.' |