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. C you all! MESS. My honourable lords, health to Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns [money. MESS. No treachery; but want of men and Among the soldiers this is muttered,― That here you maintain several factions; And, whilst a field should be despatch'd and fought, You are disputing of your generals. One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost; Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings; 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." 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, Enter a third Messenger. 3 MESS. My gracious lords,—to add to your laments, Wherewith you now bedew king Henry's hearse,— I must inform you of a dismal fight, Betwixt the stout lord Talbot and the French. WIN. What! wherein Talbot overcame? is't so? [thrown: 3 MESS. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was o'erThe circumstance I'll tell you more at large. The tenth of August last, this dreadful lord, Retiring from the siege of Orleans, Having full scarce six thousand in his troop, By three and twenty thousand of the French 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 pay: 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 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! The forlorn French!] The sense of forlorn in this place, does not appear to have been understood, and Mr. Collier's annotator proposes to read forborne, instead. But the old word, meaning fore-lost, needs no change; the Dauphin apostrophises the honour of those French who had previously fallen. 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, suppose I know thee well, though never seen before. My wit untrain❜d in any kind of art. c terms; b amazon, And fightest with the sword of Deborah. Puc. 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 pros- 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 distrustful recreants! say, Fight till the last gasp, I will be your guard. CHAR. What she says, I'll confirm ; we 'll fight a Saint Martin's summer,-] "That is, expect prosperity after misfortune, like fair weather at Martlemas, after winter has begun."-JOHNSON. b Conveyance.] Deception, fraudulence,-perhaps connivance. e '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 [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; siege. 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 WOODVILLE, the Lieutenant, speaks within. WOOD. [Within.] What noise is this? what traitors have we here? 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 Mer chant of Venice," Act IV. Sc. 1 "Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandement. ' must be pronounced as a quadrisyllable. 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-coats." b Peel'd priest,-] In allusion to his shaven crown. c Canvas-] That is, toss, as in a blanket. Thus, in "The I'll use to carry thee out of this place. Second 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. |