Act 4, Scene 7

Another part of the field.

[Alarum: excursions. Enter old Talbot led by a Servant.]
Lord Talbot
2050 Where is my other life? mine own is gone;
2051 O, where's young Talbot? where is valiant John?
2052 Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity,
2053 Young Talbot's valor makes me smile at thee:
2054 When he perceived me shrink and on my knee,
2055 His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,
2056 And, like a hungry lion, did commence
2057 Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;
2058 But when my angry guardant stood alone,
2059 Tendering my ruin and assail'd of none,
2060 Dizzy-ey'd fury and great rage of heart
2061 Suddenly made him from my side to start
2062 Into the clustering battle of the French;
2063 And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
2064 His over-mounting spirit, and there died,
2065 My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.
Servant
2066 O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!
[Enter soldiers, with the body of young Talbot.]
Lord Talbot
2067 Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn,
2068 Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,
2069 Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,
2070 Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,
2071 In thy despite shall 'scape mortality.
2072 O thou, whose wounds become hard-favor'd death,
2073 Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!
2074 Brave death by speaking, whether he will or no;
2075 Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.
2076 Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say,
2077 Had death been French, then death had died to-day.
2078 Come, come and lay him in his father's arms:
2079 My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
2080 Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,
2081 Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.
[Dies.]
[Enter Charles, Alencon, Burgundy, Bastard, La Pucelle, and forces.]
Charles, the Dauphin
2082 Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,
2083 We should have found a bloody day of this.
Bastard of Orleans
2084 How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging-wood,
2085 Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!
Joan la Pucelle
2086 Once I encounter'd him, and thus I said:
2087 'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'
2088 But, with a proud majestical high scorn,
2089 He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born
2090 To be the pillage of a giglot wench:'
2091 So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
2092 He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.
Duke of Burgundy
2093 Doubtless he would have made a noble knight:
2094 See, where he lies inhearsed in the arms
2095 Of the most bloody nurser of his harms!
Bastard of Orleans
2096 Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,
2097 Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.
Charles, the Dauphin
2098 O, no, forbear! for that which we have fled
2099 During the life, let us not wrong it dead.
[Enter Sir William Lucy, attended; Herald of the French preceding.]
Sir William Lucy
2100 Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,
2101 To know who hath obtain'd the glory of the day.
Charles, the Dauphin
2102 On what submissive message art thou sent?
Sir William Lucy
2103 Submission, Dauphin! 'tis a mere French word;
2104 We English warriors wot not what it means.
2105 I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta'en,
2106 And to survey the bodies of the dead.
Charles, the Dauphin
2107 For prisoners ask'st thou? hell our prison is.
2108 But tell me whom thou seek'st.
Sir William Lucy
2109 But where's the great Alcides of the field,
2110 Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
2111 Created for his rare success in arms,
2112 Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence;
2113 Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
2114 Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
2115 Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
2116 The thrice-victorious Lord of Falconbridge;
2117 Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
2118 Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece;
2119 Great marshal to Henry the Sixth
2120 Of all his wars within the realm of France?
Joan la Pucelle
2121 Here's a silly stately style indeed!
2122 The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,
2123 Writes not so tedious a style as this.
2124 Him that thou magnifiest with all these titles
2125 Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.
Sir William Lucy
2126 Is Talbot slain, the Frenchman's only scourge,
2127 Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?
2128 O, were mine eye-balls into bullets turn'd,
2129 That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!
2130 O, that I could but can these dead to life!
2131 It were enough to fright the realm of France:
2132 Were but his picture left amongst you here,
2133 It would amaze the proudest of you all.
2134 Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence
2135 And give them burial as beseems their worth.
Joan la Pucelle
2136 I think this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,
2137 He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit,
2138 For God's sake, let him have 'em; to keep them here,
2139 They would but stink, and putrify the air.
Charles, the Dauphin
2140 Go, take their bodies hence.
Sir William Lucy
2141 I 'll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be
2142 rear'd
2143 A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.
Charles, the Dauphin
2144 So we be rid of them, do with 'em what thou wilt.
2145 And now to Paris, in this conquering vein:
2146 All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2065classical allusion
“My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride”
Icarus was the son of the craftsman Daedalus who made wings of feathers and wax to escape imprisonment on Crete. Ignoring his father's warning, Icarus flew too high; the sun melted the wax and he plunged into the sea and drowned. Talbot's use of the name for young John measures the boy's blazing courage as a fatal overreach — beautiful, but doomed by the very spirit that made him extraordinary.
TLN 2067archaic vocab
“Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn”
'Antic' here means a grotesque clown or buffoon — the word was used in Elizabethan England for the grinning, capering figure of Death in paintings and pageants (the 'Dance of Death' tradition). Talbot personifies Death as a mocking jester who has staged the Talbots' destruction as a macabre joke.
TLN 2070archaic vocab
“winged through the lither sky”
'Lither' means pliant, supple, or yielding — here it describes the sky as yielding, soft air through which the Talbots' paired souls will fly free. The word survives in 'lithe' (flexible, graceful) but has otherwise dropped from modern English.
TLN 2084archaic vocab
“raging-wood, Did flesh his puny sword”
Two packed archaisms: 'wood' (also spelled 'wode') meant raving mad, in a frenzy of fury — the Bastard says young John fought like a berserk animal. To 'flesh' a sword meant to use it in anger for the first time on live flesh, blooding it as a hunter might 'flesh' a young hound on its first kill. Together they picture a furious novice warrior bloodying his blade.
TLN 2089archaic vocab
“Young Talbot was not born To be the pillage of a giglot wench”
A 'giglot' (also 'giglet') was a wanton, giddy, or lascivious woman — a term of contempt combining sexual looseness and frivolity. Joan quotes John Talbot refusing to be the trophy ('pillage') of such a woman. The word stings twice: it dismisses Joan's sex and implies her moral character in a single blow.
historical Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc)
TLN 2109classical allusion
“great Alcides of the field”
Alcides was another name for Hercules, derived from his grandfather Alcaeus. Sir William Lucy applies it to the dead Talbot, comparing him to the greatest strongman-hero of classical myth. The epithet raises Talbot's military feats to the level of the legendary labours of Hercules.
classical Hercules and his labourshistorical John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury
TLN 2117historical topical
“Knight of the noble order of Saint George, Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece”
Lucy recites three of Europe's greatest orders of chivalry that Talbot belonged to or was honoured by. 'The noble order of Saint George' is the Order of the Garter — England's highest knighthood, founded by Edward III around 1348 and dedicated to Saint George. 'Worthy Saint Michael' is the French Order of Saint Michael, founded by Louis XI in 1469. 'The Golden Fleece' is the Burgundian order founded by Philip the Good in 1430 — worn by the great nobles of the Low Countries and Spain. Talbot's membership in all three signals that he was recognized as a supreme knight across nations.
historical The Order of the Garter
TLN 2122historical topical
“The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath, Writes not so tedious a style as this”
Joan uses the Ottoman Sultan as her benchmark for royal grandeur: even the ruler of the largest empire then known to Europeans does not use such a pompous string of titles. 'The Turk' was Elizabethan shorthand for the Ottoman emperor, whose domains stretched from Hungary and North Africa to Persia and Mesopotamia. The number 'two and fifty kingdoms' is a stock Elizabethan figure for the immensity of Ottoman power — not a literal count but a conventional hyperbole for staggering size.
TLN 2126classical allusion
“the Frenchman's only scourge, Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis”
Nemesis was the Greek goddess of divine retribution — she pursued those who escaped justice or grew too proud, bringing them down inescapably. Lucy calls Talbot France's 'black Nemesis': the unstoppable avenger the French could never escape, the doom that followed them on the battlefield. 'Black' adds the color of death and menace, intensifying the mythological force.
TLN 2141classical allusion
“from their ashes shall be rear'd A phoenix that shall make all France afeard”
The phoenix was a legendary bird — only one existed at a time — that lived for hundreds of years, then burned itself on a funeral pyre and rose reborn from its own ashes. Lucy prophesies that from the Talbots' deaths a new avenger will arise even more terrible to France. The phoenix's renewal from fire made it the classical emblem of immortal fame and unconquerable resurgence.