None do you like but an effeminate prince, And lookest to command the prince and realm. GLO. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh, And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st, Except it be to pray against thy foes. BED. Cease, cease these jars, and rest your minds in peace! Let's to the altar:-heralds, wait on us :— When at their mothers' moist eyes, babes shall suck; Our isle be made a marish of salt tears, Enter a Messenger. с MESS. My honourable lords, health to you all! Sad tidings bring I to you out of France, Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture: Guienne, Champaigne, Rheims, Orleans, Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost. BED. What say'st thou, man! before dead Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns MESS. No treachery; but want of men and a Moist-] The reading of the second folio: the first has moisten'd. b Marish-] The first folio reads Nourish, an evident misprint, but one not lacking defenders. Our reading is Pope's, which Ritson has very well supported by a line from Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy: " "Made mountains marsh with spring-tides of my tears." A third man *thinks, without expense at all, Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot: EXE. Were our tears wanting to this funeral, These tidings would call forth her flowing tides. BED. Me they concern; regent I am of France: Give me my steeled coat! I'll fight for France.- Enter a second Messenger, 2 MESS. Lords, view these letters, full of bad mischance: France is revolted from the English quite, EXE. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him! O, whither shall we fly from this reproach? GLO. We will not fly, but to our enemies' throats: Bedford, if thou be slack, I'll fight it out. An army have I muster'd in my thoughts, By three and twenty thousand of the French Was round encompassed and set upon : hedges, They pitched in the ground confusedly, To keep the horsemen off from breaking in. * Here, there, and every where, enrag'd he flew : Durst not presume to look once in the face. BED. Is Talbot slain? then I will slay myself, For living idly here in pomp and ease, Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid, Unto his dastard foe-men is betray'd. 3 MESS. O no, he lives; but is took prisoner, And lord Scales with him, and lord Hungerford: Most of the rest slaughter'd, or took, likewise. BED. His ransom there is none but I shall I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne,- The English army is grown weak and faint: CHAR. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens, So in the earth, to this day is not known: ALEN. They want their porridge, and their fat bull-beeves: Either they must be dieted like mules, Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear: Now for the honour of the forlorn French! — Him I forgive my death, that killeth me, When he sees me go back one foot or fly. [Exeunt. Alarums; Excursions; the French are beaten back by the English with great loss. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, REIGNIER, and others. CHAR. Who ever saw the like? what men have I ! Dogs! cowards! dastards!-I would ne'er have fled, But that they left me 'midst my enemies. ALEN. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records, CHAR. Let's leave this town; for they are hair-brain'd slaves, And hunger will enforce them to be more eager: REIG. I think, by some odd gimmers or device, Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome; CHAR. Go, call her in: [Exit Bastard.] but, first, to try her skill, Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place : Question her proudly, let thy looks be stern ;By this means shall we sound what skill she hath. [Retires. Re-enter the Bastard of Orleans, with La PUCELLE.(3) REIG. Fair maid, is't thou wilt do these wondrous feats? [me?Puc. Reignier, is't thou that thinkest to beguile Where is the Dauphin?-Come, come from behind; I know thee well, though never seen before. My wit untrain❜d in any kind of art. b And fightest with the sword of Deborah. Prc. Christ's mother helps me, else I were too weak. [help me : CHAR. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must Impatiently I burn with thy desire; My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu’d. CHAR. Mean time look gracious on thy prostrate thrall. REIG. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk. ALEN. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock, Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech. REIG. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean? [do know : ALEN. He may mean more than we poor men These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues. [you on? REIG. My lord, where are you? what devise Shall we give over Orleans, or no? Puc. Why, no, I say, distrustful recreants! Fight till the last gasp, I will be your guard. CHAR. What she says, I'll confirm; we'll fight Saint Martin's summer,-] "That is, expect prosperity after misfortune, like fair weather at Martlemas, after winter has begun."-JOHNSON. Conveyance.] Deception, fraudulence,—perhaps connivance. c 'Tis Gloster that calls.] See note (b), p. 293. CHAR. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove? (5) Thou with an eagle art inspired, then. Helen, the mother of great Constantine, Nor yet saint Philip's daughters, were like thee. Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth, How may I reverently worship thee enough? ALEN. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege. [honours; REIG. Woman, do what thou canst to save our Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd. CHAR. Presently we'll try :-come, let's away about it; No prophet will I trust, if she prove false. SCENE III.-London. [Exeunt. Tower Hill. Enter, at the Gates, the DUKE of GLOUCESTER, with his Serving-men in blue coats. b GLO. I am come to survey the Tower this day; Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance. Where be these warders, that they wait not here? Open the gates, 'tis Gloster that calls. [Servants knock. 1 WARD. [Within.] Who's there that knocks so imperiously? 1 SERV. It is the noble duke of Gloster. 2 WARD. [Within.] Whoe'er he be, you may not be let in. [tector? 1 SERV. Villains, answer you so the lord pro1 WARD. [Within.] The Lord protect him! so we answer him: We do not otherwise than we are will'd. GLO. Who willed you? or whose will stands but mine? There's none protector of the realm but I.— GLOUCESTER'S Men rush at the Tower gates: and GLO. Lieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear? Open the gates; here's Gloster, that would enter. WOOD. [Within.] Have patience, noble duke; I may not open; The cardinal of Winchester forbids: d Break up the gates,-] To break up, meant to break open. e Commandement,-] Commandement, here, as in "The Merchant of Venice," Act IV. Sc. 1 "Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandement," must be pronounced as a quadrisyllable. # GLO. Peel'd' priest, dost thou command me to be shut out? WIN. I do, thou most usurping proditor, And not protector of the king or realm. GLO. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator; Thou that contriv'dst to murder our dead lord; Thou, that giv'st whores indulgences to sin: I'll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal's hat, If thou proceed in this thy insolence. WIN. Nay, stand thou back; I will not budge a foot; d This be Damascus, be thou cursed Cain, To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt. [back: GLO. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee WIN. How now, ambitious Humphrey! what Thy scarlet robes, as a child's bearing-cloth, means this? (*) Old copies, Umpheir, and Umpire. a Tawny coats.] A tawny coat was the dress worn by persons employed in the ecclesiastical courts, and by the retainers of a church dignitary. Thus, in Stow's Chronicle, p. 822 :-"-and by the way the bishop of London met him, attended on by a goodly company of gentlemen in tawny-coals." b Peel'd priest,-] In allusion to his shaven crown. e Canvas- That is, toss, as in a blanket. Thus, in "The Se I'll use to carry thee out of this place. cond Part of Henry IV." Act II. Sc. 4, when Falstaff says:-"I will toss the rogue in a blanket," Doll Tearsheet rejoins, "- if thou dost, I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets. d Damascus.-] Damascus. was anciently believed to be the spot where Cain killed his brother:-" Damascus is as moche to saye as shedynge of blood. For there Chaym slowe Abell, and hidde hym in the sonde."-Polychronicon, fol. xii. quoted by Ritson. |