The First Part Of Henry The Sixth

1 Alarum. Excursions. Enter old Talbot led by a Servant.
2 TALBOT.
3 Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.
4 O, where’s young Talbot? Where is valiant John?
5 Triumphant Death, smear’d with captivity,
6 Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee.
7 When he perceived me shrink and on my knee,
8 His bloody sword he brandish’d over me,
9 And like a hungry lion did commence
10 Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;
11 But when my angry guardant stood alone,
12 Tendering my ruin and assail’d of none,
13 Dizzy-ey’d fury and great rage of heart
14 Suddenly made him from my side to start
15 Into the clustering battle of the French;
16 And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
17 His over-mounting spirit; and there died
18 My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.
19 SERVANT.
20 O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!
21 Enter soldiers, with the body of young Talbot.
22 TALBOT.
23 Thou antic Death, which laugh’st us here to scorn,
24 Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,
25 Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,
26 Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,
27 In thy despite shall scape mortality.
28 O thou whose wounds become hard-favour’d Death,
29 Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!
30 Brave Death by speaking, whether he will or no;
31 Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.
32 Poor boy, he smiles, methinks, as who should say,
33 Had Death been French, then Death had died today.
34 Come, come, and lay him in his father’s arms;
35 My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
36 Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,
37 Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave.
38 [_Dies._]
39 Enter Charles, Alençon, Burgundy, Bastard, La Pucelle and forces.
40 CHARLES.
41 Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,
42 We should have found a bloody day of this.
43 BASTARD.
44 How the young whelp of Talbot’s, raging-wood,
45 Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen’s blood!
46 PUCELLE.
47 Once I encounter’d him, and thus I said:
48 “Thou maiden youth, be vanquish’d by a maid.”
49 But with a proud majestical high scorn
50 He answer’d thus: “Young Talbot was not born
51 To be the pillage of a giglot wench.”
52 So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
53 He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.
54 BURGUNDY.
55 Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.
56 See, where he lies inhearsed in the arms
57 Of the most bloody nurser of his harms.
58 BASTARD.
59 Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,
60 Whose life was England’s glory, Gallia’s wonder.
61 CHARLES.
62 O, no, forbear! For that which we have fled
63 During the life, let us not wrong it dead.
64 Enter Sir William Lucy and a French Herald.
65 LUCY.
66 Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin’s tent,
67 To know who hath obtain’d the glory of the day.
68 CHARLES.
69 On what submissive message art thou sent?
70 LUCY.
71 Submission, Dauphin! ’Tis a mere French word.
72 We English warriors wot not what it means.
73 I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta’en,
74 And to survey the bodies of the dead.
75 CHARLES.
76 For prisoners ask’st thou? Hell our prison is.
77 But tell me whom thou seek’st.
78 LUCY.
79 But where’s the great Alcides of the field,
80 Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
81 Created for his rare success in arms
82 Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,
83 Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
84 Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
85 Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
86 The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,
87 Knight of the noble Order of Saint George,
88 Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece,
89 Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth
90 Of all his wars within the realm of France?
91 PUCELLE.
92 Here’s a silly stately style indeed!
93 The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,
94 Writes not so tedious a style as this.
95 Him that thou magnifiest with all these titles
96 Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.
97 LUCY.
98 Is Talbot slain, the Frenchman’s only scourge,
99 Your kingdom’s terror and black Nemesis?
100 O, were mine eye-balls into bullets turn’d,
101 That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!
102 O, that I could but call these dead to life!
103 It were enough to fright the realm of France.
104 Were but his picture left amongst you here,
105 It would amaze the proudest of you all.
106 Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence
107 And give them burial as beseems their worth.
108 PUCELLE.
109 I think this upstart is old Talbot’s ghost,
110 He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.
111 For God’s sake, let him have them; to keep them here,
112 They would but stink and putrify the air.
113 CHARLES.
114 Go, take their bodies hence.
115 LUCY.
116 I’ll bear them hence;
117 But from their ashes shall be rear’d
118 A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.
119 CHARLES.
120 So we be rid of them, do with them what thou wilt.
121 And now to Paris in this conquering vein.
122 All will be ours, now bloody Talbot’s slain.
123 [_Exeunt._]