That walk'd about me every minute-while; you endur'd: Here, through this grate, I can count every one, Let us look in, the sight will much delight thee.— Where is best place to make our battery next. Gar. I think, at the north gate, for there stand lords. Glan. And I, here, at the bulwark of the bridge. Tal. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd, Or with light skirmishes enfeebled. [Shot from the Town. SALISBURY and SIR THO. GARGRAVE fall. Sal. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners! Speak, Salisbury: at least, if thou canst speak; 6 Camden says, in his Remaines, that the French scarce knew the use of great ordnance till the siege of Mans, in 1455, when a breach was made in the walls of that town by the English, under the conduct of this earl of Salisbury; and that he was the first English gentleman that was slain by a cannon ball. Yet liv'st thou,Salisbury? though thy speech doth fail, He beckons with his hand, and smiles on me; [Thunder heard; afterwards an Alarum. What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens? Whence cometh this alarum, and the noise? Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd head: The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,- Is come with a great power to raise the siege. ↑ Puzzel means a dirty wench or a drab, from puzza, i. e. malus foetor,' says Minsheu. Thus in Steevens's Apology for Herodotus, 1607, Some filthy queans, especially our puzzels of Paris, use this theft.' And in Stubbe's Anatomy of Abuses, 1595, Nor yet any droye nor puzzel in the country but will carry a nosegay in her hand.' It should be remembered that in the poet's time the word dauphin was always written dolphin. Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels, And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.Convey me Salisbury into his tent, And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare. [Exeunt, bearing out the Bodies. SCENE V. The same. Before one of the Gates. Alarum. Skirmishings. TALBOT pursueth the Dauphin, and driveth him in: then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE, driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT. Tal. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force? Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them: Enter LA PUCELLE. Here, here she comes: -I'll have a bout with thee; Devil, or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee: Blood will I draw on thee1, thou art a witch, [They fight. thee. Tal. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail? My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage, And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder, And I will chastise this high-minded strumpet. Puc. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come: I must go victual Orleans forthwith. O'ertake me, if thou canst; I scorn thy strength. This day is ours, as many more shall be. [PUCELLE enters the Town, with Soldiers. 1 The superstition of those times taught that he who could draw a witch's blood was free from her power. Tal. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel; I know not where I am, nor what I do: A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal2, 3 revenge. [Alarum. Another Skirmish. It will not be :-Retire into your trenches: You all consented unto Salisbury's death, For none would strike a stroke in his Pucelle is enter'd into Orleans, In spite of us, or aught that we could do. O, would I were to die with Salisbury! The shame hereof will make me hide my head. [Alarum. Retreat. Exeunt TALBOT and his Forces, &c. : SCENE VI. The same. Enter, on the Walls, PUCELLE, CHARLES, Puc. Advance our waving colours on the walls; Rescu'd is Orleans from the English wolves1:— Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word. 2 Alluding to Hannibal's stratagem to escape, by fixing bundles of lighted twigs on the horns of oxen, recorded by Livy, lib. xxij. c. xvj. 3 Old copy treacherous. Corrected by Pope. 1 Wolves. Thus the second folio, the first omits that word, Char. Divinest creature, bright Astrea's daughter, That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next 2. More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state. Reig. Why ring not out the bells throughout the town? Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires, Alen. All France will be replete with mirth and joy, Than Rhodope's, of Memphis, ever was 3 : and the epithet bright prefixed to Astrea in the next line but one. Malone follows the reading of the first folio, and contends that by a licentious pronunciation a syllable was added, thus Engleïsh, Asterea. 2 The Adonis horti were nothing but portable earthen pots, with some lettuce or fennel growing in them. On his yearly festival every woman carried one of them in honour of Adonis, because Venus had once laid him in a lettuce bed. The next day they were thrown away. The proverb seemed to have been used always in a bad sense, for things which make a fair show for a few days and then wither away. The author of this play has mistakingly made the dauphin apply it as an encomium. There is a good account of it in Erasmus's Adagia. 3 The old copy reads: Than Rhodophe's or Memphis ever was.' Rhodope, or Rhodopis, a celebrated courtezan, who was a slave in the same service with Æsop, at Samos. The brother of Sappho, Charaxes, purchased her freedom and married her. She obtained so much money by selling her favours at Naucrates, that she is said to have erected at Memphis the fairest and most |