TALBOT
Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter.
Summon their general unto the wall.
TALBOT
English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,
Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
And thus he would: Open your city gates,
Be humble to us, call my sovereign yours,
And do him homage as obedient subjects,
And I’ll withdraw me and my bloody power.
But if you frown upon this proffer’d peace,
You tempt the fury of my three attendants,
Lean Famine, quartering Steel, and climbing Fire,
Who in a moment even with the earth
Shall lay your stately and air-braving towers,
If you forsake the offer of their love.
GENERAL
ominous and fearful owl of death,
Our nation’s terror and their bloody scourge!
The period of tyranny approacheth.
On us canst not enter but by death;
For, I protest, we are well fortified
And strong enough to issue out and fight.
If retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,
Stands with the snares of war to tangle .
On either hand there are squadrons pitch’d
To wall from the liberty of flight;
And no way canst turn for redress
But Death front with apparent spoil,
And pale Destruction meets in the face.
Ten thousand French have ta’en the sacrament
To rive their dangerous artillery
Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.
Lo, there stand’st, a breathing valiant man
Of an invincible unconquer’d spirit.
This is the latest glory of praise
That I, enemy, due ;
For the glass, that now begins to run,
Finish the process of his sandy hour,
These eyes, that see now well coloured,
Shall see wither’d, bloody, pale, and dead.
GENERAL
Hark, hark, the Dauphin’s drum, a warning bell,
Sings heavy music to timorous soul,
And mine shall ring dire departure out.
TALBOT
He fables not; I hear the enemy.
Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.
O, negligent and heedless discipline!
How are we park’d and bounded in a pale,
A little herd of England’s timorous deer,
Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
If we be English deer, be then in blood;
Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch,
But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,
Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel
And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.
Sell every man his life as dear as mine,
And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.
God and Saint George, Talbot and England’s right,
Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!