Before Orleans. | |
| |
Enter to the Gates, a French Sergeant, and two Sentinels. | |
| Serg. Sirs, take your places and be vigilant. | |
| If any noise or soldier you perceive | 4 |
| Near to the walls, by some apparent sign | |
| Let us have knowledge at the court of guard. | |
| First Sent. Sergeant, you shall. [Exit Sergeant. | |
| Thus are poor servitors— | 8 |
| When others sleep upon their quiet beds— | |
| Constrain’d to watch in darkness, rain, and cold. | |
| |
Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and Forces with scaling-ladders; their drums beating a dead march. | |
| Tal. Lord regent, and redoubted Burgundy, | 12 |
| By whose approach the regions of Artois, | |
| Walloon, and Picardy, are friends to us, | |
| This happy night the Frenchmen are secure, | |
| Having all day carous’d and banqueted: | 16 |
| Embrace we then this opportunity, | |
| As fitting best to quittance their deceit | |
| Contriv’d by art and baleful sorcery. | |
| Bed. Coward of France! how much he wrongs his fame, | 20 |
| Despairing of his own arm’s fortitude, | |
| To join with witches and the help of hell! | |
| Bur. Traitors have never other company. | |
| But what’s that Pucelle whom they term so pure? | 24 |
| Tal. A maid, they say. | |
| Bed. A maid, and be so martial! | |
| Bur. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long; | |
| If underneath the standard of the French | 28 |
| She carry armour, as she hath begun. | |
| Tal. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits; | |
| God is our fortress, in whose conquering name | |
| Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks. | 32 |
| Bed. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee. | |
| Tal. Not all together: better far, I guess, | |
| That we do make our entrance several ways, | |
| That if it chance the one of us do fail, | 36 |
| The other yet may rise against their force. | |
| Bed. Agreed. I’ll to yond corner. | |
| Bur. And I to this. | |
| Tal. And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave. | 40 |
| Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right | |
| Of English Henry, shall this night appear | |
| How much in duty I am bound to both. [The English scale the walls, crying, ‘Saint George!’ ‘A Talbot!’ and all enter the town. | |
| First Sent. Arm, arm! the enemy doth make assault! | 44 |
| |
The French leap over the Walls in their shirts. Enter, several ways, BASTARD OF ORLEANS, ALENÇON, and REIGNIER, half ready, and half unready. | |
| Alen. How now, my lords! what! all unready so? | |
| Bast. Unready! ay, and glad we ’scap’d so well. | |
| Reig. ’Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds, | 48 |
| Hearing alarums at our chamber-doors. | |
| Alen. Of all exploits since first I follow’d arms, | |
| Ne’er heard I of a war-like enterprise | |
| More venturous or desperate than this. | 52 |
| Bast. I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell. | |
| Reig. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him. | |
| Alen. Here cometh Charles: I marvel how he sped. | |
| Bast. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard. | 56 |
| |
Enter CHARLES and JOAN LA PUCELLE. | |
| Char. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame? | |
| Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal, | |
| Make us partakers of a little gain, | 60 |
| That now our loss might be ten times so much? | |
| Joan. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend? | |
| At all times will you have my power alike? | |
| Sleeping or waking must I still prevail, | 64 |
| Or will you blame and lay the fault on me? | |
| Improvident soldiers! had your watch been good, | |
| This sudden mischief never could have fall’n. | |
| Char. Duke of Alençon, this was your default, | 68 |
| That, being captain of the watch to-night, | |
| Did look no better to that weighty charge. | |
| Alen. Had all your quarters been so safely kept | |
| As that whereof I had the government, | 72 |
| We had not been thus shamefully surpris’d. | |
| Bast. Mine was secure. | |
| Reig. And so was mine, my lord. | |
| Char. And for myself, most part of all this night, | 76 |
| Within her quarter and mine own precinct | |
| I was employ’d in passing to and fro, | |
| About relieving of the sentinels: | |
| Then how or which way should they first break in? | 80 |
| Joan. Question, my lords, no further of the case, | |
| How or which way: ’tis sure they found some place | |
| But weakly guarded, where the breach was made. | |
| And now there rests no other shift but this; | 84 |
| To gather our soldiers, scatter’d and dispers’d, | |
| And lay new platforms to endamage them. | |
| |
Alarum. Enter an English Soldier, crying, ‘A Talbot! a Talbot!’ They fly, leaving their clothes behind. | |
| Sold. I’ll be so bold to take what they have left. | 88 |
| The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword; | |
| For I have loaden me with many spoils, | |
| Using no other weapon but his name. [Exit. | |
