4.4 Enter TALBOT and his son JOHN.
TALBOT O young John Talbot, I did send for thee
To tutor thee in stratagems of war,
That Talbot’s name might be in thee revived
When sapless age and weak unable limbs
Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.
5
But – O malignant and ill-boding stars –
Now thou art come unto a feast of death,
A terrible and unavoided danger.
Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,
And I’ll direct thee how thou shalt escape
10
By sudden flight. Come – dally not, be gone.
JOHN Is my name Talbot? And am I your son?
And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,
Dishonour not her honourable name
To make a bastard and a slave of me.
15
The world will say, ‘He is not Talbot’s blood,
That basely fled when noble Talbot stood’.
TALBOT Fly, to revenge my death if I be slain.
JOHN He that flies so will ne’er return again.
TALBOT If we both stay we both are sure to die.
20
JOHN Then let me stay and, father, do you fly.
Your loss is great – so your regard should be;
My worth unknown – no loss is known in me.
Upon my death the French can little boast;
In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.
25
Flight cannot stain the honour you have won;
But mine it will, that no exploit have done.
You fled for vantage, everyone will swear;
But if I bow they’ll say it was for fear.
There is no hope that ever I will stay
30
If the first hour I shrink and run away.
Here on my knee I beg mortality,
Rather than life preserved with infamy. [He Kneels.]
TALBOT Shall all thy mother’s hopes lie in one tomb?
JOHN Ay, rather than I’ll shame my mother’s womb.
35
TALBOT Upon my blessing I command thee go.
[John rises.]
JOHN To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.
TALBOT Part of thy father may be saved in thee.
JOHN No part of him but will be shame in me.
TALBOT
Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.
40
JOHN Yes, your renowned name: shall flight abuse it?
TALBOT
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.
TALBOT And leave my followers here to fight and die?
45
My age was never tainted with such shame.
JOHN And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?
No more can I be severed from your side
Than can yourself yourself in twain divide.
Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;
50
For live I will not, if my father die.
TALBOT 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.
55
Alarum. Exit Talbot.
Enter ALENÇON, BASTARD and BURGUNDY in excursions, wherein Talbot’s son is hemmed about by the three Frenchmen, as he goes after his father, and TALBOT re-enters and rescues him.
[4.6]
TALBOT
Saint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight.
The regent hath with Talbot broke his word
And left us to the rage of France his sword.
Where is John Talbot? Pause, and take thy breath.
I gave thee life, and rescued thee from death.
60
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,
To my determined time thou gav’st new date.
[9]
TALBOT
When from the Dolphin’s crest thy sword struck fire
65
It warmed thy father’s heart with proud desire
Of bold-faced victory. Then leaden age,
Quickened with youthful spleen and warlike rage,
Beat down Alençon, Orleans, Burgundy,
And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee.
70
The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood
From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood
Of thy first fight, I soon encountered,
And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed
[19]
Some of his bastard blood, and in disgrace
75
Bespoke him thus: ‘Contaminated, base
And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,
Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine
Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy’.
Here, purposing the Bastard to destroy,
80
Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father’s care:
Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?
Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,
Now thou art sealed the son of chivalry?
[29]
Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead;
85
The help of one stands me in little stead.
O, too much folly is it, well I wot,
To hazard all our lives in one small boat.
If I today die not with Frenchmen’s rage,
Tomorrow I shall die with mickle age.
90
By me they nothing gain, an if I stay,
’Tis but the shortening of my life one day;
In thee thy mother dies, our household’s name,
My death’s revenge, thy youth and England’s fame.
All these, and more, we hazard by thy stay;
95
All these are saved, if thou wilt fly away.
JOHN The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart:
These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.
On that advantage, bought with such a shame,
To save a paltry life and slay bright fame?
100
Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
The coward horse that bears me fall and die!
And like me to the peasant boys of France,
To be shame’s scorn, and subject of mischance.
[49]
Surely, by all the glory you have won,
105
An if I fly I am not Talbot’s son.
Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot:
If son to Talbot, die at Talbot’s foot.
TALBOT Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete,
Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet.
110
If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father’s side,
And, commendable proved, let’s die in pride. Exeunt.
Alarum. Excursions. Enter old TALBOT led by a Servant. [4.7]
TALBOT Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.
O where’s young Talbot? Where is valiant John?
Triumphant death, smeared with captivity,
115
Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee.
When he perceived me shrink and on my knee,
His bloody sword he brandished over me
And like a hungry lion did commence
Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience.
120
But when my angry guardant stood alone,
Tendering my ruin and assailed of none,
[10]
Dizzy-eyed fur
y and great rage of heart
Suddenly made him from my side to start
Into the clustering battle of the French,
125
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
His over-mounting spirit, and there died
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.
Enter soldiers with JOHN Talbot, borne.
SERVANT O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne.
TALBOT
Thou antic death, which laugh’st us here to scorn,
130
Anon from thy insulting tyranny,
Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,
[20]
Two Talbots, winged, through the lither sky
In thy despite shall scape mortality.
O thou, whose wounds become hard-favoured death,
135
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’.
140
Come, come, and lay him in his father’s arms;
My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
[30]
Soldiers, adieu. I have what I would have,
Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave. Dies.
Enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, BURGUNDY, the BASTARD and JOAN Puzel.
CHARLES Had York and Somerset brought rescue in
145
We should have found a bloody day of this.
BASTARD
How the young whelp of Talbot’s, raging wood,
Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen’s blood.
JOAN Once I encountered him, and thus I said:
‘Thou maiden youth, be vanquished by a maid’.
150
But with a proud majestical high scorn
He answered thus: ‘Young Talbot was not born
[40]
To be the pillage of a giglot wench’.
So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.
155
BURGUNDY
Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.
See where he lies inhearsed in the arms
Of the most bloody nurser of his harms.
BASTARD
Hew them to pieces. Hack their bones asunder,
Whose life was England’s glory, Gallia’s wonder.
160
CHARLES O no, forbear. For that which we have fled
During the life, let us not wrong it dead.
[50]
Enter Sir William LUCY with a French herald.
LUCY Herald, conduct me to the Dolphin’s tent,
To know who hath obtained the glory of the day.
CHARLES On what submissive message art thou sent?
165
LUCY
Submission, Dolphin? ’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.
CHARLES For prisoners ask’st thou? Hell our prison is.
170
But tell me whom thou seek’st.
LUCY But where’s the great Alcides of the field? –
[60]
Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
Created for his rare success in arms
Great Earl of Washford, Waterford and Valence,
175
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdon of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
180
Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece,
Great marshal to Henry the Sixth
[70]
Of all his wars within the realm of France.
JOAN Here’s a silly stately style indeed:
The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,
185
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?
190
O, were mine eyeballs into bullets turned,
That I in rage might shoot them at your faces.
[80]
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
195
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.
JOAN I think this upstart is old Talbot’s ghost,
He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.
200
For God’s sake let him have him: to keep them here,
They would but stink, and putrefy the air.
[90]
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 210