Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had, Ready they were to shoot me to the hearta. Sal. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd: But we will be reveng'd sufficiently. Now it is supper-time in Orleans : 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! Gar. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man! Tal. What chance is this, that suddenly hatlı cross'd us? Speak, Salisbury: at least, if thou canst speak; That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy! any trump Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars; Whilst did sound, or drum struck up, • Here the old stage direction is, Enter the Boy with a Linstock. › 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. His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.— Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? though thy speech doth fail, One thou hast to look to heaven for grace: eye The sun with one eye vieweth all the world. 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. [SALISBURY lifts himself up and groans. Tal. Hear, hear, how dying Salisbury doth groan! It irks his heart, he cannot be revenged.— Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you: Pucelle or puzzel 10, dolphin or dogfish, 9 Nero, which is necessary to the sense, is not in the old copy Malone supplied it. It may be remarked that Salisbury's name was not Plantagenet, but Thomas Montacute. 10 Puzzel means a dirty wench or a drab, from puzza, i, e. ma Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels, And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen 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: [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, But I will chastise this high-minded strumpet. [They fight again. lus 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. The superstition of those times, not yet entirely extinct, taught that he who could draw a witch's blood was free from her power. 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. Go, go, cheer up thy hungry-starved men ; Help Salisbury to make his testament: This day is ours, as many more shall be. [PUCELLE enters the Town, with Soldiers. 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 Hannibal, [A short Alarum. Hark, countrymen! either renew the fight, Or tear the lions out of England's coat; Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead: Sheep run not half so timorous3 from the wolf, Or horse, or oxen, from the leopard, you fly from your oft-subdued slaves. As [Alarum. Another Skirmish. In spite of us, or aught that we could do. head. Retreat. Exeunt TALBOT and his Forces, &c. 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. 16. Old copy, treacherous. Corrected by Pope. SCENE VI. The same. Enter, on the Walls, PUCELLE, CHARLES, Puc. Advance our waving colours on the walls; More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state. -- Reig. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the town? Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires, Alen. All France will be replete with mirth and joy, When they shall hear how we have play'd the men. Char. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won; For which, I will divide my crown with her : 1 Wolves. Thus the second folio, the first omits that word, and the epithet bright prefixed to Astrea in the next line but Malone follows the reading of the first folio, and contends that by a licentious pronunciation a syllable was added, thus Engleïsh, Asteræa. one. 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 seems 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 Dauphin is here made to apply it as an encomium. There is a good account of it in Erasmus's Adagia; but the idea may have been taken from The Faerie Queene, Book iii. can. G st. 42. |