Suddenly made him from my side to start
Into the clustering battle of the French;
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
His over-mounting spirit; and there died
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

Serv. O my dear lord, lo, where your son is borne !
Enter Soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT.

Tal. Thou antic death,3 which laugh'st us here to scorn, Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,

Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,

Two Talbots, wingèd through the lither sky,4

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 death by speaking, whether 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.

Alarums. Exeunt Soldiers and Servant, leaving the two bodies. Enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, BURGUNDY, the Bastard of Orleans, LA PUCELLE, and Forces.

So.

Char. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,

3 A buffoon or merry-andrew was called an antic. We have it repeatedly See vol. ii. page 145, note 22.

4 Lither is limber, pliant, yielding; as in Paradise Lost, iv.: "The unwieldy elephant, to make them mirth, used all his might, and wreath'd his lithe proboscis." — Sky is here put for air; the meaning thus being much the same as in Milton's, "He with broad sails winnow'd the buxom air"; where buxom is used in its original sense of pliant, yielding.

We should have found a bloody day of this.

Bast. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging-wood,5 Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!

Puc. 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 giglet 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 !8

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.

Enter Sir WILLIAM LUCY, attended; a French Herald preceding.

Lucy. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,

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.

5 Wood is an old word for mad or furious. See vol. iii. page 31, note 28.

6 Giglet is giddy, wanton. Cotgrave explains "A minx, gigle, flirt, callet." See vol. vi. page 235, note 30.

7 So in The First Part of Jeronimo, 1605: "Meet, Don Andrea! yes, in the battle's bowels."

8" Nurser of his harms," if the text be right, must mean nurse of his wounds. In that case, bloody is covered with blood.

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 Marshal to Henry the Sixth

Of all his wars within the realm of France?

Puc. 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 eyeballs 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 amongst you here,
It would amaze 10 the proudest of you all.
Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence,
And give them burial as beseems their worth.

Puc. 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.

• Wexford, in Ireland, was anciently called Washford and Weysford. 10 To amaze is to strike with dismay or consternation.

Char. Go, take their bodies hence.
Lucy.

I'll bear them hence:

But doubt not from their ashes shall be rear'd
A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.
Char. So we be rid of them, do what thou wilt. -
And now to Paris, in this conquering vein :
All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.

[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter King Henry, Gloster, and Exeter.

King. Have you perused the letters from the Pope, The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?

Glo. I have, my lord: and their intent is this: They humbly sue unto your Excellence

To have a godly peace concluded of

Between the realms of England and of France.

King. How doth your Grace effect their motion?
Glo. Well, my good lord; and as the only means

To stop effusion of our Christian blood,

And stablish quietness on every side.

King. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought It was both impious and unnatural

That such immanity and bloody strife

Should reign among professors of one faith.

Glo. Besides, my lord, the sooner to effect

And surer bind this knot of amity,

1 Immanity is savageness, barbarity; like the Latin immanitas.

Proffers his only daughter to your Grace

In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dower.
King. Marriage, uncle! alas, my years are young!
And fitter is my study and my books

Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.

Yet, call th' ambassadors; and, as you please,

So let them have their answers every one :

I shall be well content with any choice

Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.

Enter a Legate and two Ambassadors, with WINCHESTER, now Cardinal BEAUFORT, and habited accordingly.

Exe. [Aside.] What! is my Lord of Winchester install'd, And call'd unto a cardinal's degree? 2

Then I perceive that will be verified

Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy,

If once he come to be a cardinal,

He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.

King. My lords ambassadors, your several suits Have been consider'd and debated on.

Your purpose is both good and reasonable;

And therefore are we certainly resolved
To draw conditions of a friendly peace;
Which by my Lord of Winchester we mean

2 Beaufort's preferment to "a cardinal's degree" having happened about fifteen years back, it may seem strange that Exeter should now for the first time wonder at it as something new. This, however, is quite in keeping with other things in the same scene, such as the alleged youth of the King, who was at this time twenty-three years old. The point is well stated by Coleridge: "The history of our ancient kings, the events of their reigns, I mean, - are like stars in the sky; whatever the real interspaces may be, and however great, they seem close to each other. The stars- the -strike us and remain in our eye, little modified by the difference

events

of dates."