Henry VI, Pt. 1
Act II, Scene 1
France. Before Orléans.
- Enter a French Sergeant of a band, with two Sentinels.
French Sergeant
1 - 4- Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.
- If any noise or soldier you perceive
- Near to the walls, by some apparent sign
- Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.
First Sentinel
5 - 8- Sergeant, you shall.
- Exit Sergeant.
- Thus are poor servitors,
- When others sleep upon their quiet beds,
- Constrain’d to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.
- Enter Talbot, Bedford, and Burgundy, and forces with
- scaling-ladders.
Lord Talbot
9 - 16- Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,
- By whose approach the regions of Artois,
- Wallon, and Picardy are friends to us,
- This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,
- Having all day carous’d and banqueted:
- Embrace we then this opportunity
- As fitting best to quittance their deceit
- Contriv’d by art and baleful sorcery.
Duke of Bedford
17 - 19- 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!
Duke of Burgundy
20 - 21- Traitors have never other company.
- But what’s that Pucelle whom they term so pure?
Lord Talbot
22- A maid, they say.
Duke of Bedford
23- A maid? And be so martial?
Duke of Burgundy
24 - 26- Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,
- If underneath the standard of the French
- She carry armor as she hath begun.
Lord Talbot
27 - 29- Well, let them practice and converse with spirits.
- God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
- Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.
Duke of Bedford
30- Ascend, brave Talbot, we will follow thee.
Lord Talbot
31 - 34- Not all together. Better far, I guess,
- That we do make our entrance several ways;
- That, if it chance the one of us do fail,
- The other yet may rise against their force.
Duke of Bedford
35- Agreed. I’ll to yond corner.
Duke of Burgundy
36- And I to this.
Lord Talbot
37 - 40- And here will Talbot mount, or make his grave.
- Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right
- Of English Henry, shall this night appear
- How much in duty I am bound to both.
- Cry: “Saint George!” “A Talbot!”
- The English scale the walls.
First Sentinel
41- Arm, arm! The enemy doth make assault!
- The French leap o’er the walls in their shirts. Enter,
- several ways, Bastard, Alanson, Reignier, half ready and
- half unready.
Duke of Alanson
42- How now, my lords? What, all unready so?
Bastard of Orléans
43- Unready? Ay, and glad we scap’d so well.
Duke of Anjou
44 - 45- ’Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,
- Hearing alarums at our chamber-doors.
Duke of Alanson
46 - 48- Of all exploits since first I follow’d arms,
- Ne’er heard I of a warlike enterprise
- More venturous or desperate than this.
Bastard of Orléans
49- I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.
Joan of Arc
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1882
Duke of Anjou
50- If not of hell, the heavens sure favor him.
Duke of Alanson
51- Here cometh Charles, I marvel how he sped.
- Enter Charles and Joan de Pucelle.
Bastard of Orléans
52- Tut, holy Joan was his defensive guard.
Dauphin of France
53 - 56- Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?
- Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,
- Make us partakers of a little gain,
- That now our loss might be ten times so much?
Joan de Pucelle
57 - 62- Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?
- At all times will you have my power alike?
- Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail,
- Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?
- Improvident soldiers, had your watch been good,
- This sudden mischief never could have fall’n.
Dauphin of France
63 - 65- Duke of Alanson, this was your default,
- That, being captain of the watch tonight,
- Did look no better to that weighty charge.
Duke of Alanson
66 - 68- Had all your quarters been as safely kept
- As that whereof I had the government,
- We had not been thus shamefully surpris’d.
Bastard of Orléans
69- Mine was secure.
Duke of Anjou
70- And so was mine, my lord.
Dauphin of France
71 - 75- And for myself, most part of all this night,
- Within her quarter and mine own precinct
- I was employ’d in passing to and fro,
- About relieving of the sentinels.
- Then how, or which way, should they first break in?
Joan de Pucelle
76 - 81- Question, my lords, no further of the case,
- How or which way. ’Tis sure they found some place
- But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.
- And now there rests no other shift but this,
- To gather our soldiers, scatter’d and dispers’d,
- And lay new platforms to endamage them.
- Alarum. Enter an English Soldier crying, “A Talbot! A
- Talbot!”
- They fly, leaving their clothes behind.
English Soldier
82 - 85- I’ll be so bold to take what they have left.
- The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword,
- For I have loaden me with many spoils,
- Using no other weapon but his name.
- Exit.
Jean II, Duke of Alençon
Unknown artist, 1473