William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Oxford Shakespeare. 1914.
Act IV. Scene VII.The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
Tal.Where is my other life?—mine own is gone;—
O! where’s young Talbot? where is valiant John?
Triumphant death, smear’d with captivity,
Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee.
When he perceiv’d me shrink and on my knee,
His bloody sword he brandish’d 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 assail’d of none,
Dizzy-ey’d fury and great rage of heart
Suddenly made him from my side to start
Into the clust’ring battle of the French;
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
His overmounting spirit; and there died
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.
Serv.O, my dear lord! lo, where your son is borne!
Tal.Thou antick, death, which laugh’st us here to scorn,
Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,
Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,
Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,
In thy despite shall ’scape mortality.
O! thou, whose wounds become hard-favour’d death,
Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath;
Brave doath by speaking whe’r 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.
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,
Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen’s blood!
Joan.Once I encounter’d him, and thus I said:
‘Thou maiden youth, be vanquish’d by a maid:’
But with a proud majestical high scorn,
He answer’d thus: ‘Young Talbot was not born
To be the pillage of a giglot 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.
Bast.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.
Lucy.Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin’s tent,
To know who hath obtain’d 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, Waterford, and Valence;
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?
Joan.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 fly-blown lies here at our feet.
Lucy.Is Talbot slain, the Frenchmen’s only scourge,
Your kingdom’s terror and black Nemesis?
O! were mine eye-balls into bullets turn’d,
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 amaze the proudest of you all.
Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence,
And give them burial as beseems their worth.
Joan.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 rear’d
A phœnix 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.