But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart,

Whom with my bare fists I would execute,

If I now had him brought into my power.

Sal. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd Tal. With scoffs and scorns and contumeliou taunts.

In open market-place produced they me, 40
To be a public spectacle to all:

Here, said they, is the terror of the French,
The scarecrow that affrights our children so.
Then broke I from the officers that led me,
And with my nails digg'd stones out of the
ground,

To hurl at the beholders of my shame:

50

My grisly countenance made others fly;
None durst come near for fear of sudden death.
In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;
So great fear of my name 'mongst them was
spread
That they supposed I could rend bars of steel,
And spurn in pieces posts of adamant:
Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had,
That walk'd about me every minute while;
And if I did but stir out of my bed,
Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.

43. "This man [Talbot] was to the French people a very scourge and a daily terror, insomuch that as his person was fearful and terrible to his adversaries present, so his name and fame was spiteful and dreadful to the common people absent; insomuch that women in France, to feare their yong children, would crye the Talbot cometh" (Hall's Chronicle).—H. N. H.

53. "shot" marksman, "shots."-C. H. H.

=

Enter the Boy with a linstock.

Sal. I grieve to hear what torments you endured, But we will be revenged sufficiently.

Now it is supper-time in Orleans:

Here, through this grate, I count each one, 60
And view the Frenchmen how they fortify:

Let us look in; the sight will much delight thee.
Sir Thomas Gargrave, and Sir William Glans-
dale,

Let me have your express opinions

Where is best place to make our battery next. Gar. I think, at the north gate; for there stand lords.

Glan. And I, here, at the bulwark of the bridge. Tal. For aught I see, this city must be famish’d, Or with light skirmishes enfeebled.

[Here they shoot. Salisbury and Gargrave fall. Sal. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sin

ners!

70

Gar. O Lord, have mercy on me, woful man!
Tal. What chance is this that suddenly hath cross'd

us?

Speak, Salisbury: at least, if thou canst speak:
How farest thou, mirror of all martial men?
One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off!
Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand
That hath contrived this woful tragedy!
In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;
Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars;
Whilst any trump did sound, or drum struck

up,

80

His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.
Yet livest thou, Salisbury? though thy speech
doth fail,

One eye thou hast, to look to heaven for grace:
The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.
Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive,
If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!
Bear hence his body; I will help to bury it,
Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?
Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.
Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort; 90
Thou shalt not die whiles-

He beckons with his hand and smiles on me,
As who should say 'When I am dead and gone,
Remember to avenge me on the French.'
Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,

95. This looks as if the Poet thought Salisbury's name Plantagenet, while in fact it was Thomas Montacute. Holinshed gives the following account of him: "This earle was the man at that time, by whose wit, strength, and policie, the English name was much terrible to the French; which of himselfe might both appoint, command, and doo all things in manner at his pleasure; for suerlie he was both painefull, diligent, and ready to withstand all dangerous chances that were in hand, prompt in counsell, and of courage invincible; so that in no one man men put more trust, nor any singular person wan the harts so much of all men.”—The main event of this scene is thus related by the same writer: "In the tower that was taken at the bridge end, there was an high chamber, having a grate full of barres of iron, by the which a man might looke all the length of the bridge into the citie; at which grate manie of the cheefe capteins stood manie times, viewing the citie, and devising in what place it was best to give the assault. They within the citie well perceived this tooting hole, and laid a peece of ordinance directlie against the window. It so chanced, that the nine and fiftith daie after the siege was laid the earle of Salisburie, sir Thomas Gargrave, and William Glasdale, with diverse other went into the said tower, and so into the high chamber, and looked out at the grate, and within a short space

Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn;
Wretched shall France be only in thy name.
[Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens.
What stir is this? what tumult 's in the heavens?
Whence cometh this alarum, and the noise?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd

head:

100

The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,
A holy prophetess new risen up,

Is come with a great power to raise the siege.
[Here Salisbury lifteth himself up and groans.
Tal. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan!
It irks his heart he cannot be revenged.
Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you:
Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,

the sonne of the maister-gunner, perceiving men looking out at the window, tooke his match, as his father had taught him, who was gone downe to dinner, and fired the gun; the shot whereof brake and shivered the iron barres of the grate, so that one of the same bars strake the earle so violentlie on the head, that it stroke awaie one of his eies and the side of his cheeke. Sir Thomas Gargrave was likewise striken, and died within two daies. The earle was conveied to Meun on Loire, where after eight daies he likewise departed this world.”—H. N. H.

95. "like thee, Nero," Malone; F. 1, "like thee"; F. 2, "Nero like will"; Ff. 3, 4, "Nero like, will"; Pope, "Nero-like," &c.-I. G. 101. "Joan la Pucelle"; Ff., "Joan de Puzel" (and elsewhere).— I. G.

107. "Puzzel" means a dirty wench or a drab; “from puzza, that is, malus fœtor," says Minsheu. Thus in Steevens's Apology for Herodotus, 1607: "Some filthy queans, especially our puzzels of Paris, use this theft." And in Stubbe's Anatomy of Abuses, 1595: "Nor yet any droye nor puzzel in the country but will carry a nosegay in her hand." It should be remembered that in the Poet's time dauphin was always written dolphin.-H. N. H.

Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's

heels,

And make a quagmirx

hyperbole Convey me Salisbury into his tent,

of your mingled brains.

110

And then we 'll try what these dastard French

men dare.

[Alarum. Exeunt.

SCENE V

The same.

Here an alarum again: and Talbot pursueth the Dauphin, and driveth him: then enter Joan La Pucelle, driving Englishmen before her, and exit after them: then re-enter Talbot.

Tal. Where is my strength, my valor, and my force?

Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them:
A woman clad in armor chaseth them.

Re-enter La Pucelle.

Here, here she comes. I'll have a bout with thee;

Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee:

Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch,
And straightway give thy soul to him thou

servest.

6. "Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch"; "the superstition of those times taught that he that could draw the witch's blood was free from her power" (Johnson).—I. G.