But, O malignant and ill boding stars!- Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse; To make a bastard, and a slave of me: Tal. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb? John. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb. 1 To a field where death will be feasted with slaughter. 2 Unavoided for unavoidable. For what reason this scene is written in rhyme (says Dr. Johnson) I cannot guess. If Shakspeare had not in other plays mingled his rhymes and blank verses in the same manner, I should have suspected that this dialogue had been part of some other poem, which was never finished, and that being loath to throw his labour away, he inserted it here,' Mr. Boswell remarks that it was a practice common to all Shakspeare's contemporaries. 4 Your care of your own safety. Tal. Upon my blessing I command thee go. John. Yes, your renowned name; Shall flight abuse it? Tal. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain. John. You cannot witness for me, being slain, If death be so apparent, then both fly. Tal. And leave my followers here, to fight, and die? My age was never tainted with such shame. John. And shall my youth be guilty of such blame? No more can I be sever'd from your side, Than can yourself yourself in twain divide: Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I; For live 1 will not, if my father die. Tal. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son, Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon. Come, side by side together live and die; And soul with soul from France to heaven fly. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. A Field of Battle. Alarum: Excursions, wherein TALBOT's Son is hemmed about, and TALBOT rescues him. Tal. Saint George and victory! fight, soldiers, fight: The regent hath with Talbot broke his word, breath: I gave thee life, and rescu'd thee from death. John. O twice my father! twice am I thy son: The life, thou gav'st me first, was lost and done; Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate, It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire And from the pride of Gallia rescu'd thee. Mean and right poor; for that pure blood of mine, Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care; To hazard all our lives in one small boat. 1 Determined here must signify prescribed, limited, appointed; and not ended, as Steevens and Malone concur in explaining it. John could not be meant to say that his time of life was actually ended. Thus in King Richard III. Act. i. Sc. 3: Riv. It is concluded he shall be protector. Q. Eliz. It is determined, not concluded yet, All these, and more, we hazard by thy stay; John. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart, These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart 2: On that advantage, bought with such a shame Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot 4; Tal. Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet: If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side; [Exeunt. SCENE VII. Another Part of the same. Alarum: Excursions. Enter TALBOT wounded, supported by a Servant. Tal. Where is my other life?-mine own is gone; 2 Prior has borrowed this thought in his Henry and Emma :Are there not poisons, racks, and flames, and swords, That Emma thus must die by Henry's words?' And in the Third Part of King Henry VI. we have: Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words.' 3 i. e compare me, reduce me to a level by comparison. So in King Henry IV. Part 11.When the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing man,' &c. 4 See note on King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1, p. 12. Thus in the Third Part of King Henry VI.:- And again : 'I Dædalus, my poor boy, Icarus.' O, where's young Talbot?-where is valiant John? Enter Soldiers, bearing the Body of JOHN TALBOT. Serv. O my dear lord! lo, where your son is borne! Tal. Thou antic death, which laugh'st us here to scorn 3, Anon, from thy insulting tyranny, Coupled in bonds of perpetuity, Two Talbots, winged through the lither4 sky, O thou whose wounds become hard-favour'd death, 1 Triumphant death, though thy presence is made more terrible. on account of the stain of dying in captivity, yet young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee. 2Watching me with tenderness in my fall. Thus in the Second Part of King Henry VI :— I tender so the safety of my liege.' 3 In King Richard II. we have the same image:-- That rounds the mortal temples of a king 4 Lither is flexible, pliant, yielding. In much the same manner Milton says: He with broad sails Winnow'd the buxom air.' Where buxom is used in its old original sense of pliant, yielding. Blount, in his Glossography, points out the perversion of buxom to its modern meaning. |