Let not your private discord keep away
The levied succours that should lend him aid,
While he, renowned noble gentleman,

4

Yields up his life unto a world of odds:

Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,
Alençon, Reignier, compass him about,
And Talbot perisheth by your default.

SOM. York set him on, York should have sent him aid.

Lucy. And York as fast upon your grace exclaims;

Swearing that you withhold his levied host,

Collected for this expedition.

SOM. York lies; he might have sent and had the horse:

I owe him little duty, and less love;

And take foul scorn, to fawn on him by sending.
LUCY. The fraud of England, not the force of
France,

Hath now entrapp'd the noble-minded Talbot!
Never to England shall he bear his life:

But dies, betray'd to fortune by your strife.
SOM. Come, go; I will despatch the horsemen
straight:

Within six hours they will be at his aid.

LUCY. Too late comes rescue; he is ta'en, or

slain :

For fly he could not, if he would have fled;
And fly would Talbot never, though he might.

So Ulysses, in Troilus and Cressida, says that the Grecian chiefs were

66

grown to an envious fever

"Of pale and bloodless emulation." M. MASON. Yields Thus the second folio: the first-yield.

STEEVENS.

5- AND Burgundy,] And, which is necessary to the metre, is wanting in the first folio, but is supplied by the second.

STEEVENS,

SOM. If he be dead, brave Talbot then adieu ! LUCY. His fame lives in the world, his shame in

you.

SCENE V.

[Exeunt.

The English Camp near Bourdeaux.

Enter TALBOT and JOHN his Son.

TAL. O young John Talbot! I did send for thee, To tutor thee in stratagems of war;

That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd,
When sapless age, and weak unable limbs,
Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.
But,-O malignant and ill-boding stars!-
Now thou art come unto a feast of death",
A terrible and unavoided danger :

Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse;
And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape
By sudden flight: come, dally not, begone.
JOHN. Is my name Talbot? and am I your son?
And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,
Dishonour not her honourable name,
To make a bastard, and a slave of me:
The world will say-He is not Talbot's blood,
That basely fled, when noble Talbot stood 8.

6 a FEAST of DEATH,] To a field where death will be feasted with slaughter. JOHNSON.

So, in King Richard II :

"This feast of battle, with mine adversary." STEEVENS. 7- unavoided-] for unavoidable. MALONE.

8

So, in King Richard II. :

"And unavoided is the danger now." STEEVENS.

noble Talbot stood.] For what reason this scene is written in rhyme, I cannot guess. If Shakspeare had not in other plays mingled his rhymes and blank verses in the same manner, I should have suspected that this dialogue had been a part of some other poem which was never finished, and that being loath to throw his labour away, he inserted it here. JOHNSON.

TAL. Fly, to revenge my death, if I be slain.
JOHN. He, that flies so, will ne'er return again.
TAL. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.
JOHN. Then let me stay; and father, do you
fly:

Your loss is great, so your regard' should be ;
;;
My worth unknown, no loss is known in me.
Upon my death the French can little boast;
In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.
Flight cannot stain the honour you have won ;
But mine it will, that no exploit have done:
You fled for vantage every one will swear;
But, if I bow, they'll say—it was for fear.
There is no hope that ever I will stay,
If, the first hour, I shrink, and run away.
Here, on my knee, I beg mortality,
Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.

TAL. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?

JOHN. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's

womb.

TAL. Upon my blessing I command thee go.
JOHN. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.
TAL. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.
JOHN. No part of him, but will be shame in me.
TAL. Thou never had'st renown, nor canst not
lose it.

JOHN. Yes, your renowned name; Shall flight abuse it?

TAL. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.

JOHN. You cannot witness for me, being slain.

This practice was common to all his contemporaries. Essay on Shakspeare's Versification. BOSWELL.

9- your regard -] Your care of your own safety.

See the

JOHNSON.

If death be so apparent, then both fly.

TAL. And leave my followers here, to fight, and die?

My age was never tainted with such shame.

JOHN. And shall my youth be guilty of such

blame ?

No more can I be sever'd from your side,
Than can yourself yourself in twain divide:
Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;
For live I will not, if my father die.

TAL. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son, Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.

1

Come, side by side together live and die;

And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.

SCENE VI.

A Field of Battle.

[Exeunt.

Alarum: Excursions, wherein TALBOT's Son is
hemmed about, and TALBOT rescues him.
TAL. Saint George and victory! fight, soldiers,
fight:

The regent hath with Talbot broke his word,
And left us to the rage of France his sword.
Where is John Talbot?-pause, and take thy
breath;

I gave thee life, and rescu'd thee from death.
JOHN. O twice my father! twice am I thy son 2:

1

sun.

fair son,

Born to ECLIPSE, &c.] An apparent quibble between son and
So, in King Richard III. :

"And turns the sun to shade ;-alas, alas !

"Witness my son, now in the shade of death." STEEVENS. 2 O twice my father! twice am I thy son:] A French epigram, on a child, who being shipwrecked with his father saved his life by

The life, thou gav'st me first, was lost and done";
Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,
To my determin'd time' thou gav'st new date.
TAL. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword
struck fire,

It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire
Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,
Quicken'd with youthful spleen, and warlike rage,
Beat down Alençon, Orleans, Burgundy,
Aud from the pride of Gallia rescu'd thee.
The ireful bastard Orleans-that drew blood
From thee, my boy; and had the maidenhood
Of thy first fight-I soon encountered;
And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed
Some of his bastard blood; and, in disgrace,
Bespoke him thus: Contaminated, base,
And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,

Mean and right poor; for that pure blood of mine,
Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy :-
Here, purposing the Bastard to destroy,

getting on his parent's dead body, turns on the same thought. After describing the wreck, it concludes thus:

3

aprez mille efforts,

J'apperçus prez de moi flotter des membres morts;
Helas! c'etoit mon pere.

Je le connus, je l'embrassai,

Et sur lui jusq' au port heureusement poussé,

Des ondes et vents j'evitai la furie.

Que ce pere doit m'etre cher,

Qui m'a deux fois donné la vie,

Une fois sur la terre, et l'autre sur la mer! Malone.

and DONE;] See p. 119, n. 5. MALONE.

4 To my DETERMIN'D time-] i. e. ended. So, in King

Henry IV. Part II.:

"Till his friend sickness hath determin'd me."

STEEVENS.

The word is still used in that sense by legal conveyancers.

MALONE.

5 When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword STRUCK FIRE,] So, in Drayton's Mortimeriados, 1596:

"Made fire to fly from Hertford's burgonet." STEEVENS.