BED. Coward of France!-how much he wrongs his fame, Despairing of his own arm's fortitude, BUR. Traitors have never other company.But what's that Pucelle, whom they term so pure? TAL. A maid, they say. BED. A maid! and be so martial! BUR. Pray God, she prove not masculine ere long; If underneath the standard of the French, TAL. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits: God is our fortress; in whose conquering name, Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks. BED. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee. TAL. Not all together: better far, I guess, That we do make our entrance several ways; That, if it chance the one of us do fail, The other yet may rise against their force. BED. Agreed; I'll to yon corner. BUR. And I to this. TAL. And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave. Now Salisbury! for thee, and for the right Of English Henry, shall this night appear [The English scale the Walls, crying St. George! a Talbot! and all enter by the Town. SENT. [Within.] Arm, arm! the enemy doth make assault! The French leap over the Walls in their Shirts. Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALENÇON, REIGNIER, half ready, and half unready. ALEN. How now, my lords? what, all unready so ?7 BAST. Unready?ay, and glad we 'scap'd so well. REIG. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds, Hearing alarums at our chamber doors. ALEN. Of all exploits, since first I follow'd arms, Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprize More venturous, or desperate than this. 7 BAST. I think, this Talbot be a fiend of hell. -unready so?] times for undressed. Unready was the current word in those JOHNSON. So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1638: "Enter Sixtus and Lucrece unready." Again, in The Two Maids of More-clacke, 1609: "Enter James unready in his night-cap, garterless," &c. Again, in A Match at Midnight, 1633, is this stage direc tion: "He makes himself unready." Why what do you mean? you will not be so uncivil as to unbrace you here?" Again, in Monsieur D'Olive, 1606 : "You are not going to bed, I see you are not yet unready." Again, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611: "Here Jupiter puts out the lights, and makes himself unready." 8 Unready is equivalent to the old French word-di-pret. STEEVENS. Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.] So, in King Lear: "Or, at the chamber door I'll beat the drum-." STEEVENS. REIG. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him. ALEN. Here cometh Charles; I marvel, how he sped. Enter CHARLES and LA PUCELLE. BAST. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard. CHAR. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame? Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal, Make us partakers of a little gain, That now our loss might be ten times so much? Puc. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend? At all times will you have my power alike? ALEN. Had all your quarters been as safely kept, REIG. And so was mine, my lord. CHAR. And, for myself, most part of all this night, Within her quarter, and mine own precinct, About relieving of the sentinels: Then how, or which way, should they first break in? Puc. Question, my lords, no further of the case, How, or which way; 'tis sure, they found some place But weakly guarded, where the breach was made. Alarum. Enter an English Soldier, crying a Talbot! a Talbot! They fly, leaving their Clothes behind. SOLD. I'll be so bold to take what they have left. The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword; 9 -platforms—] i. e. plans, schemes. STEEVENS. 1 Enter an English Soldier crying, a Talbot! a Talbot!] And afterwards: "The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword." Here a popular tradition, exclusive of any chronicle-evidence, was in Shakspeare's mind. Edward Kerke, the old commentator on Spenser's Pastorals, first published in 1579, observes in his notes on June, that Lord Talbot's "noblenesse bred such a terrour in the hearts of the French, that oftimes greate armies were defaited and put to flight, at the only hearing of his name: insomuch that the French women, to affray their children, would tell them, that the TALBOT cometh." See also sc. iii. T. WARTON. The same is said in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret, of Lord Warwick: "And still so fearful was great Warwick's name, STEEVENS. In a note on a former passage, p. 40, n. 5, I have quoted a passage from Hall's Chronicle, which probably furnished the author of this play with this circumstance. It is not mentioned by Holinshed, (Shakspeare's historian,) and is one of the numerous proofs that have convinced me that this play was not the production of our author. See the Essay at the end of The Third Part of King Henry VI. It is surely more probable that the writer For I have loaden me with many spoils, Using no other weapon but his name. 爵 [Exit. SCENE II. Orleans. Within the Town. Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a Captain, and Others. BED. The day begins to break, and night is fled, Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth. Here sound retreat, and cease our hot pursuit. [Retreat sounded. TAL. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury; And here advance it in the market-place, The middle centre of this cursed town.Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;2 For every drop of blood was drawn from him, There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night. And, that hereafter ages may ages may behold What ruin happen'd in revenge of him, of this play should have taken this circumstance from the Chronicle which furnished him with this plot, than from the Comment on Spenser's Pastorals. MALONE. This is one of the floating atoms of intelligence which might have been orally circulated, and consequently have reached our author through other channels, than those of Spenser's annotator, or our English Chronicler. STEEVENS. 2 Now have I paid my vow unto his soul; &c.] So, in the old spurious play of King John: "Thus hath king Richard's son perform'd his vow, "Unto his father's ever-living soul." STEEVENS. |