The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE VII. Another part of the field.
Alarum. Excursions. Enter old Talbot led by a Servant. TALBOT. Where is my other life? Mine own is gone. O, where’s young Talbot? Where is valiant John? Triumphant Death, smear’d with captivity, Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee. When he perceived me shrink and on my knee, His bloody sword he brandish’d over me, And like a hungry lion did commence Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience; But when my angry guardant stood alone, Tendering my ruin and assail’d of none, Dizzy-ey’d fury and great rage of heart 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. SERVANT. O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne! Enter soldiers, with the body of young Talbot. TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh’st us here to scorn, Anon, from thy insulting tyranny, Coupled in bonds of perpetuity, Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky, 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 today. 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.
CHARLES. For prisoners ask’st thou? Hell our prison is. But tell me whom thou seek’st. LUCY. But where’s 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? PUCELLE. Here’s 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 Frenchman’s only scourge, Your kingdom’s terror and black Nemesis? O, were mine eye-balls 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 the proudest of you all. Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence And give them burial as beseems their worth.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.