30

Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires,
And feast and banquet in the open streets,
To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.

Alen. All France will be replete with mirth and joy,
When they fhall hear how we have play'd the men.
Char. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won
For which, I will divide my crown with her:
And all the priests and friars in my realm
Shall, in proceffion, fing her endless praise.
A ftatelier pyramis to her I'll rear,
Than Rhodope's', or Memphis', ever was:
In memory of her, when he is dead,
Her afhes, in an urn more precious
Than the rich-jewel'd coffer of Darius 2,
Transported fhall be at high festivals
Before the kings and queens of France.
No longer on faint Dennis will we cry,
But Joan la Pucelle fhall be France's faint.
Come in; and let us banquet royally,
After this golden day of victory.

(Flourish. Exeunt.

Than Rhodope's,] Rhodope was a famous ftrumpet, who acquired The least but most finished of the Egyptian great riches by her trade. pyramids (fays Pliny in the 36th book of his Natural Hiftory, ch. xii.) She is faid afterwards to have married Pfammetiwas built by her. chus, king of Egypt. Dr. Johnson thinks that the Dauphin means to call Joan of Arc a ftrumpet, all the while he is making this loud praise of her. I would read:

"Than Rhodope's of Memphis, ever was.'

STEEVENS.

The brother of Sappho, was in love with Rhodope, and purchased her freedom (for the was a flave in the fame houfe with fop the fabulist) at a great price. Rhodope was of Thrace, not of Memphis. Memphis, a city of Egypt, was celebrated for its pyramids :

3

"Barbara Pyramidum fileat miracula Memphis."

MART. De fpectaculis Libel. Ep. 1.

MALONE.

ceffer of Darius,] When Alexander the Great took the city of Gaza, the metropolis of Syria, amidst the other fpoils and wealth of Darius treasured up there, he found an exceeding rich and beautiful little cheft or casket, and asked thofe about him what they thought When they had feverally delivered their opifittest to be laid up in it. nions, he told them, he esteemed nothing fo worthy to be preferved in it as Homer's Iliad. Vide Plutarchum in Vitâ Alexandri Magni.

THEOBALD.

ACT

ACT II.

SCENE I.

The fame.

Enter to the gates, a French Serjeant, and two Sentinels
Serj. Sirs, take your places, and be vigilant:
If any noise, or foldier, you perceive,

Near to the walls, by fome apparent fign,

Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.

1. Sent. Serjeant, you fhall. [Exit Serjeant.] Thus are poor fervitors

(When others fleep upon their quiet beds)
Conftrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.

Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and forces,
with fealing ladders; their drums beating a dead march.
Tal. Lord regent, and redoubted Burgundy,-
By whofe approach, the regions of Artois,
Walloon, and Picardy, are friends to us,-
This happy night the Frenchmen are fecure,
Having all day carous'd and banqueted:
Embrace we then this opportunity;
As fitting beft to quittance their deceit,
Contriv'd by art, and baleful forcery.

Bed. Coward of France!-how much he wrongs his fame, 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 fo pure?

Tal. A maid, they fay. .

Bed. A maid! and be so martial!

Bur. Pray God, the prove not masculine ere long;

If underneath the standard of the French,

She carry armour, as fhe hath begun.

Tal. Well, let them practife and converse with spirits: God is our fortrefs; in whofe conquering name,

Let us refolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.

Bed. Afcend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.

Tal.

Tal. Not all together: better far, I guess,
That we do make our entrance feveral ways;
That, if it chance the one of us do fail,
The other yet may rise against their force.
Bed. Agreed; I'll to yon corner.

Bur. And I to this.

Tal. And here will Talbot mount, or make his Now, Salisbury! for thee, and for the right Of English Henry, fhall this night appear How much in duty I am bound to both.

grave.

[The English Scale the walls, crying St. George! a Talbot! and all enter by the town.

Sent. [within.] Arm, arm! the enemy doth make asfault!

The French leap over the walls in their fhirts. Enter, feveral ways, BASTARD, ALENÇON, REIGNIER, half ready, and half unready.

Alen. How now, my lords? what, all unready fo3? Baft. Unready? ay, and glad we 'fcap'd fo well. Reig. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake, and leave our beds, Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.

Alen. Of all exploits, fince first I follow'd arms, Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprize

More venturous, or defperate, than this.

Baft. I think, this Talbot be a fiend of hell.

Reig. If not of hell, the heavens, fure, favour him.
Alen. Here cometh Charles; I marvel, how he fped.
Enter CHARLES, and LA PUCELLE.

Baft. Tut! holy Joan was his defenfive guard.
Char. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?
Didft thou at firft, to flatter us withal,

Make us partakers of a little gain,

3-unready fo?] Unready was the current word in thofe times for andrefs'd. JOHNSON.

So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1638: "Enter Sixtus, and Lucrece unready." Again, in The two Maids of More-clacke, 1609: "Enter James unready, in his night-cap, garterlefs," &c. STEEVENS.

That

That now our lofs might be ten times fo much?
Pac. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?
At all times will you have my power alike?
Sleeping, or waking, muft I still prevail,

Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?—
Improvident foldiers! had your watch been good,
This fudden mifchief never could have fall'n.
Char. Duke of Alençon, this was your default;
That, being captain of the watch to-night,
Did look no better to that weighty charge.
Alen. Had all your quarters been as fafely kept,
As that whereof I had the government,
We had not been thus fhamefully furpriz❜d.
Baft. Mine was secure.

Reig. And fo was mine, my lord.

Char. And, for myself, most part of all this night,
Within her quarter, and mine own precinct,
I was employ'd in paffing to and fro,

About relieving of the fentinels:

Then how, or which way, fhould they firft break in?
Puc. Queftion, my lords, no further of the cafe,
How, or which way; 'tis fure, they found fome place
But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.
And now there refts no other shift but this,-
To gather our foldiers, scatter'd and difpers'd,
And lay new platforms to endamage them.

Alarum. Enter an English Soldier crying, a Talbot! @ Talbot! They fly, leaving their cloaths behind.

Sol. I'll be fo bold to take what they have left. The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;

*For

4 Enter an English foldier crying, a Talbot! a Talbot!] And after

wards:

"The cry of Talbot ferves me for a fword." Here a popular tradition, exclufive of any chronicle-evidence, was in Shakspeare's mind. Edward Kerke, the old commentator on Spenfer's Paftorals, first published in 1579, obferves in his notes on June, that lord Talbot's "nobleneffe bred fuch a terrour in the hearts of the VOL. VI.

D

French,

For I have loaden me with many spoils,

Ufing no other weapon but his name.

[Exit.

Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a Captain,

and Others.

Bed. The day begins to break, and night is fled,
Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.
Here found retreat, and cease our hot pursuit.

[Retreat founded.
Tal. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury;
And here advance it in the market-place,
The middle centre of this curfed town.-
Now have I pay'd my vow unto his foul;
For every drop of blood was drawn from him,
There hath at least five Frenchmen dy'd to-night.
And, that hereafter ages may behold
What ruin happen'd in revenge of him,
Within their chiefeft temple I'll erect
A tomb, wherein his corpfe fhall be interr'd:
Upon the which, that every one may read,
Shall be engrav'd the fack of Orleans;
The treacherous manner of his mournful death,
And what a terror he had been to France.
But, lords, in all our bloody maffacre,

I mufe, we met not with the Dauphin's grace;

French, that oftimes great armies were defeated and put to flight, at the only bearing of his name: infomuch that the French women to affray their children, would tell them, that the TALBOT cometh." See alfo Sc. iii. T. WARTON.

In a note on a former paffage, p. 24, n. 8, I have quoted a paffage from Hall's Chronicle, which probably furnished the author of this play with this circumstance. It is not mentioned by Holinfhed, (ShakIpeare's hiftorian,) and is one of the numerous proofs that have convinced me that this play was not the production of our author. See the Effay at the end of the third part of King Henry VI. It is furely more probable that the writer of this play fhould have taken this circumstance from the chronicle which furnished him with his plot, than from the Comment on Spenfer's paftorals. MALONE.