Henry VI, Part I by William Shakespeare (best big ereader .txt) 📕

art seal’d the son of chivalry?
Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:
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 to-day die not with Frenchmen’s rage,
To-morrow I shall die with mickle age:
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;
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,
Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
The coward horse that bears me fail and die!
And like me to the peasant boys of France,
To be shame’s scorn and subject of mischance!
Surely, by all the glory you have won,
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:
If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father’s side;
And, commendable proved, let’s die in pride. Exeunt.

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-eyed 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 to-day.
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. Dies.

Enter Charles, Alençon, Burgundy, Bastard, La Pucelle, and forces. Charles

Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,
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!

Pucelle

Once I encounter’d him, and thus I said:
“Thou maiden youth, be vanquish’d by a maid:”
But, with a proud majestical high scorn,
He answer’d thus: “Young Talbot was not born
To be the pillage of a giglot wench:”
So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.

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.

Charles

O, no, forbear! for that which we have fled
During the life, let us not wrong it dead.

Enter Sir William Lucy, attended; Herald of the French preceding. Lucy

Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin’s tent,
To know who hath obtain’d the glory of the day.

Charles On what submissive message art thou sent? Lucy

Submission, Dauphin! ’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.
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 is 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 Frenchmen’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.

Pucelle

I think this upstart is old Talbot’s ghost,
He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.
For God’s sake let him have ’em; to keep them here,
They would but stink, and putrefy the air.

Charles Go, take their bodies hence. Lucy

I’ll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be rear’d
A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.

Charles

So we be rid of them, do with ’em what thou wilt.
And now to Paris, in this conquering vein:
All will be ours, now bloody Talbot’s slain. Exeunt.

Act V Scene I

London. The palace.

Sennet. Enter King, Gloucester, and Exeter. King

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