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Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn;
Wretched shall France be only in thy name.
[Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens.
What stir is this? what tumult 's in the heavens?
Whence cometh this alarum, and the noise?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd

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head: The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd, A holy prophetess new risen up,

Is come with a great power to raise the siege. [Here Salisbury lifteth himself up and groans. Tal. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan! It irks his heart he cannot be revenged. Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you:

Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,

the sonne of the maister-gunner, perceiving men looking out at the window, tooke his match, as his father had taught him, who was gone downe to dinner, and fired the gun; the shot whereof brake and shivered the iron barres of the grate, so that one of the same bars strake the earle so violentlie on the head, that it stroke awaie one of his eies and the side of his cheeke. Sir Thomas Gargrave was likewise striken, and died within two daies. The earle was conveied to Meun on Loire, where after eight daies he likewise departed this world."-H. N. H.

95. "like thee, Nero," Malone; F. 1, "like thee"; F. 2, "Nero like will"; Ff. 3, 4, "Nero like, will"; Pope, "Nero-like," &c. I. G. 101. "Joan la Pucelle"; Ff., "Joan de Puzel" (and elsewhere).— I. G.

107. “Puzzelmeans a dirty wench or a drab; "from puzza, that is, malus fætor," says Minsheu. Thus in Steevens's Apology for Herodotus, 1607: "Some filthy queans, especially our puzzels of Paris, use this theft." And in Stubbe's Anatomy of Abuses, 1595: "Nor yet any droye nor puzzel in the country but will carry a nosegay in her hand." It should be remembered that in the Poet's time dauphin was always written dolphin.-H. Ν. Η.

Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's

heels,

And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.
Convey me Salisbury into his tent,

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And then we 'll try what these dastard French

men dare.

[Alarum. Exeunt.

SCENE V

The same.

Here an alarum again: and Talbot pursueth the Dauphin, and driveth him: then enter Joan La Pucelle, driving Englishmen before her, and exit after them: then re-enter Talbot.

Tal. Where is my strength, my valor, and my force?

Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them: [
A woman clad in armor chaseth them.

G

H

F

Re-enter La Pucelle.

I'll have a bout with

Here, here she comes.

thee;

Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee:
Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch,

And straightway give thy soul to him thou

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S

servest.

6. "Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch"; "the superstition ( of those times taught that he that could draw the witch's blood was free from her power" (Johnson).-I. G.

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Puc. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace

thee.

[Here they fight.

Tal. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail? My breast I 'll burst with straining of my cour

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age, And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder, But I will chastise this high-minded strumpet. [They fight again.

Puc. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come: I must go victual Orleans forthwith.

[A short alarum: then enter the town
with soldiers.

O'ertake me, if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.
Go, go, cheer up thy hungry-starved men;
Help Salisbury to make his testament:

This day is ours, as many more shall be. [Exit. Tal. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel; I know not where I am, nor what I do;

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A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists:
So bees with smoke and doves with noisome

stench

Are from their hives and houses driven away.
They call'd us for our fierceness English dogs;
Now, like to whelps, we crying run away.

[A short alarum.

Hark, countrymen! either renew the fight,
Or tear the lions out of England's coat;

21. "like Hannibal,who, in order to escape, devised the stratagem of fixing lighted twigs to the horns of oxen. (Cp. Livy, xxii. 16.) — I. G.

Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead:
Sheep run not half so treacherous from the
wolf,

Or horse or oxen from the leopard,
As you fly from your oft-subdued slaves.

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[Alarum. Here another skirmish.

It will not be: retire into your trenches:
You all consented unto Salisbury's death,
For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.
Pucelle is enter'd into Orleans,

In spite of us or aught that we could do.
O, would I were to die with Salisbury!

The shame hereof will make me hide my head.
[Exit Talbot. Alarum; retreat; flourish.

SCENE VI

The same.

Enter, on the walls, La Pucelle, Charles, Reignier, 'Alençon, and Soldiers.

Puc. Advance our waving colors on the walls;
Rescued is Orleans from the English:

Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.

30. "treacherous from"; so Ff. 3, 4; Ff. 1, 2, "trecherous from"; Pope, "tim'rous from."-I. G.

"treacherous." So in the old copies, but commonly changed to timorous, following Pope. The change is apt enough, but needless; the meaning being, no doubt, that sheep are not to be trusted or relied on, because they are cowardly.-H. N. H.

2. "English" (trisyllabic), so F. 1; Ff. 2, 3, 4, "English wolves"; Staunton, "English dogs."—I. G.

Ste Char. Divinest creature, Astræa's daughter,
How shall I honor thee for this success?
Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens

That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the

next.

France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess!
Recover'd is the town of Orleans:

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More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state. Reig. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout

the town?

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 shall 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 procession sing her endless praise.
A statelier pyramis to her I 'll rear
Than Rhodope's or Memphis' ever was;

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4. "Astræa,” daughter of Zeus and Themis, hence goddess of Justice (and so of the observance of promises).-С. Н. Н.

6. "Adonis' gardens." "The proverb alluded to seems always to have been used in a bad sense, for things which make a fair show for a few days, and then wither away; but the author of this play, desirous of making a show of his learning, without considering its propriety, has made the Dauphin apply it as an encomium" (Blakeway). Cp. Faerie Queene, III, vi. 29; F. 1, Garden.—I. G.

22. "Than Rhodope's or Memphis," Hanmer's emendation; Ff. "or Memphis"; Capell's "of Memphis" has been generally adopted. Pliny, writing of the pyramids near Memphis, records that "the

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