John. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart; These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart : On that advantage, bought with such a shame, (To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame,) Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly, The coward horse, that bears me, fall and die : And like1 me to the peasant boys of France; To be shame's scorn, and subject of mischance! Surely, by all the glory you have won,

An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son :

Then talk no more of flight; it is no boot;

If son to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.

Tal. Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete,

Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet:

If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side ;

And, commendable proved, let's die in pride. [Exeunt.

SCENE VII. Another part of the same.

Alarum: Excursions. Enter TALBOT, wounded, supported by a Servant.

Tal. Where is my other life ?-mine own is gone ;O, where's young Talbot ?-where is valiant John? Triumphant death, smeared with captivity!Young Talbot's valor makes me smile at thee:— When he perceived me shrink, and on my knee, His bloody sword he brandished 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 assailed of none, 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

2

1 i. e. compare me, reduce me to a level by comparison.
2 "Watching me with tenderness in my fall.”

His overmounting spirit; and there died
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

Enter Soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT. Serv. O, my dear lord! lo, where your son is borne !

Tal. Thou antic death, which laugh'st us here to

scorn,

Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,

Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,

Two Talbots, winged through the lither1 sky,
In thy despite shall 'scape mortality.

O thou, whose wounds become hard-favored death,
Speak to thy father, ere thou yield thy breath:
Brave death by speaking, whether he will, or no;
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.
Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,
Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.

[Dies.

Alarums. Exeunt Soldiers and Servant, leaving the two bodies.

Enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, BURGUNDY, Bastard, 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,2

Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!
Puc. Once I encountered him, and thus I said,
Thou maiden youth, be vanquished by a maid.

1 Lither is flexible, pliant, yielding.

2 Wood signified furious as well as mad; raging-wood is certainly here furiously raging.

But-with a proud, majestical, high scorn-
He answered thus; Young Talbot was not born
To be the pillage of a giglot1 wench :

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.

Bas. 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.

Lucy. Herald,

2

Conduct me to the dauphin's tent; to know?
Who hath obtained 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.

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, Valiant lord Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury?

Created, for his rare success in arms,

Great earl of Washford,3 Waterford, and Valence;

1 A giglot is a wanton wench. "A minx, gigle (or giglet), flirt, callet, or gixie," says Cotgrave.

2 Lucy's message implied that he knew who had obtained the victory: therefore Hanmer reads:

Herald, conduct me to the dauphin's tent."

3 Wexford, in Ireland, was anciently called Weysford. In Crompton's Mansion of Magnanimitie, 1599, it is written, as here, Washford. This long list of titles is from the epitaph formerly existent on lord Talbot's tomb at Rouen. It is to be found in the work above cited, with one other, "lord Lovetoft of Worsop," which would not easily fall into the verse. It concludes as here, and adds, "who died in the battle of Burdeaux, 1453."

Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,

Lord Strange of Blackmere, lord Verdun of Alton,
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,

Of all his wars within the realm of France ?
Puc. 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,
Stinking and flyblown, lies here at our feet.

Lucy. Is Talbot slain; the Frenchman's only scourge, Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?

O were mine eyeballs into bullets turned,
That I, in rage, might shoot them at your faces!
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 amaze1 the proudest of you all.

Give me their bodies; that I may bear them hence And give them burial as beseems their worth.

Puc. 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.

Char. Go, take their bodies hence.
Lucy.

I'll bear them hence;

But from their ashes shall be reared 2

A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.

Char. So we be rid of them, do with 'em what

thou wilt.

And now to Paris, in this conquering vein;

All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain. [Exeunt.

1 To amaze is to dismay, to throw into consternation.

2 A word is wanting to complete the metre, which Hanmer thus supplied:

"But from their ashes, dauphin, shall be reared.”

ACT V.

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter KING HENRY, GLOSTER, and EXETER.

K. Hen. Have you perused the letters from the pope,

The emperor, and the earl of Armagnac ?

Glo. I have, my lord; and their intent is this,They humbly sue unto your excellence,

To have a godly peace concluded of,

Between the realms of England and of France.

K. Hen. How doth your grace affect their motion? Glo. Well, my good lord; and as the only means To stop effusion of our Christian blood,

And 'stablish quietness on every side.

K. Hen. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought, It was both impious and unnatural,

That such immanity and bloody strife

Should reign among professors of one faith.

Glo. Beside, my lord,-the sooner to effect,

And surer bind, this knot of amity,

The earl of Armagnac-near knit to Charles,
A man of great authority in France-

Proffers his only daughter to your grace

In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry. K. Hen. Marriage, uncle! alas! my years are 1 young;

And fitter is my study and my books,

Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.

Yet, call the ambassadors; and, as you please,
So let them have their answers every one;
I shall be well content with any choice,
Tends to God's glory, and my country's weal.

1 The king was, however, twenty-four years old.