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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / King Henry VI, Part 1 / Act II Scene I
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King Henry VI, Part 1: Act 2 Scene 1
Scene I Before Orleans.
- [Enter a Sergeant of a band with two Sentinels]
- SERGEANT
- 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
- 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, BURGUNDY, and Forces, with
- scaling-ladders, their drums beating a dead march]
- TALBOT
- 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 caroused and banqueted:
- Embrace we then this opportunity
- As fitting best to quittance their deceit
- Contrived by art and baleful sorcery.
- BEDFORD
- 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!
- BURGUNDY
- Traitors have never other company.
- But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?
- TALBOT
- A maid, they say.
- BEDFORD
- A maid! and be so martial!
- BURGUNDY
- Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,
- If underneath the standard of the French
- She carry armour as she hath begun.
- TALBOT
- Well, let them practise and converse with spirits:
- God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
- Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.
- BEDFORD
- Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.
- TALBOT
- 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.
- BEDFORD
- Agreed: I'll to yond corner.
- BURGUNDY
- And I to this.
- TALBOT
- 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.
- Sentinels
- Arm! arm! the enemy doth make assault!
- [Cry: 'St. George,' 'A Talbot.']
- [The French leap over the walls in their shirts.
- Enter, several ways, the BASTARD OF ORLEANS,
- ALENCON, and REIGNIER, half ready, and half unready]
- ALENCON
- How now, my lords! what, all unready so?
- BASTARD OF ORLEANS
- Unready! ay, and glad we 'scaped so well.
- REIGNIER
- 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,
- Hearing alarums at our chamber-doors.
- ALENCON
- 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 ORLEANS
- I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.
- REIGNIER
- If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him.
- ALENCON
- Here cometh Charles: I marvel how he sped.
- BASTARD OF ORLEANS
- Tut, holy Joan was his defensive guard.
- [Enter CHARLES and JOAN LA PUCELLE]
- CHARLES
- 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 LA PUCELLE
- 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.
- CHARLES
- Duke of Alencon, this was your default,
- That, being captain of the watch to-night,
- Did look no better to that weighty charge.
- ALENCON
- Had all your quarters been as safely kept
- As that whereof I had the government,
- We had not been thus shamefully surprised.
- BASTARD OF ORLEANS
- Mine was secure.
- REIGNIER
- And so was mine, my lord.
- CHARLES
- 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 LA PUCELLE
- 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 dispersed,
- And lay new platforms to endamage them.
- [Alarum. Enter an English Soldier, crying 'A
- Talbot! a Talbot!' They fly, leaving their
- clothes behind]
- SOLDIER
- 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]
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