Henry VI Part 1

CHARLES: Then come, o’ God’s name; I fear no woman.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: And while I live, I’ll ne’er fly from a man.

Here they fight, and JOAN LA PUCELLE overcomes

CHARLES: Stay, stay thy hands! thou art an Amazon
And fightest with the sword of Deborah.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: Christ’s mother helps me, else I were too weak.

CHARLES: Whoe’er helps thee, ‘tis thou that must help me:
Impatiently I burn with thy desire;
My heart and hands thou hast at once subdued.
Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,
Let me thy servant and not sovereign be:
‘Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: I must not yield to any rites of love,
For my profession’s sacred from above:
When I have chased all thy foes from hence,
Then will I think upon a recompense.

CHARLES: Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.

TALBOT: Where is my strength, my valour, and my force?
Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them:
A woman clad in armour chaseth them.

[…] Here, here she comes. I’ll have a bout with 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 servest.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: Come, come, ‘tis only I that must disgrace thee.

Here they fight

TALBOT: Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?
My breast I’ll burst with straining of my courage
And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder.
But I will chastise this high-minded strumpet.

[…] My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel;
I know not where I am, nor what I do;
A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists[.]

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.

TALBOT: Foul fiend of France, and hag of all despite,
Encompass’d with thy lustful paramours!
Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age
And twit with cowardice a man half dead?
Damsel, I’ll have a bout with you again,
Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.

[…] Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?

JOAN LA PUCELLE: Belike your lordship takes us then for fools,
To try if that our own be ours or no.

TALBOT: I speak not to that railing Hecate,
But unto thee, Alanson, and the rest;
Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?

ALANSON: Signior, no.

TALBOT: Signior, hang! base muleters of France!
Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls
And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.

An alarum: excursions. Enter FASTOLF and a CAPTAIN

CAPTAIN: Whither away, Sir John Fastolfe, in such haste?

FASTOLF: Whither away! to save myself by flight:
We are like to have the overthrow again.

CAPTAIN: What! will you fly, and leave Lord Talbot?

FASTOLF: Ay,
All the Talbots in the world, to save my life!

Exit

CAPTAIN: Cowardly knight! ill fortune follow thee!

Exit

Retreat: excursions. JOAN LA PUCELLE, ALANSON, and CHARLES fly

BEDFORD: Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,
For I have seen our enemies’ overthrow.
What is the trust or strength of foolish man?
They that of late were daring with their scoffs
Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.

BEDFORD dies, and is carried in by two in his chair

JOAN LA PUCELLE: Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
And see the cities and the towns defaced
By wasting ruin of the cruel foe.
As looks the mother on her lowly babe
When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
See, see the pining malady of France;
Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,
Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.
O, turn thy edged sword another way;
Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help.
One drop of blood drawn from thy country’s bosom
Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore:
Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,
And wash away thy country’s stained spots.

BURGUNDY: Either she hath bewitch’d me with her words,
Or nature makes me suddenly relent.

[…] I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers
Have batter’d me like roaring cannon-shot,
And made me almost yield upon my knees.

CHARLES: Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,
We should have found a bloody day of this.

BASTARD OF ORLEANCE: How the young whelp of Talbot’s, raging-wood,
Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen’s blood!

JOAN LA PUCELLE: Once I encounter’d him, and thus I said:
‘Thou maiden youth, be vanquish’d by a maid:’
But, with a proud majestical high scorn,
He answer’d thus: ‘Young Talbot was not born
To be the pillage of a giglot wench:’
So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.

BURGUNDY: Doubtless he would have made a noble knight[.]

JOAN LA PUCELLE: The regent conquers, and the Frenchmen fly.
Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;
And ye choice spirits that admonish me
And give me signs of future accidents.

Thunder

[…] Enter fiends

This speedy and quick appearance argues proof
Of your accustom’d diligence to me.
Now, ye familiar spirits, that are cull’d
Out of the powerful regions under earth,
Help me this once, that France may get the field.

They walk, and speak not

Cannot my body nor blood-sacrifice
Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?
Then take my soul, my body, soul and all,
Before that England give the French the foil.

They depart

See, they forsake me! Now the time is come
That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest
And let her head fall into England’s lap.
My ancient incantations are too weak,
And hell too strong for me to buckle with:
Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: I am with child, ye bloody homicides:
Murder not then the fruit within my womb,
Although ye hale me to a violent death.

[…] YORK: She and the Dauphin have been juggling:
I did imagine what would be her refuge.

[…] JOAN LA PUCELLE: You are deceived; my child is none of his:
It was Alanson that enjoy’d my love.

YORK: Alanson! that notorious Machiavel!
It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.

JOAN LA PUCELLE: O, give me leave, I have deluded you:
‘Twas neither Charles nor yet the duke I named,
But Reignier, king of Naples, that prevail’d.

[…] YORK: Why, here’s a girl! I think she knows not well,
There were so many, whom she may accuse.

WARWICK: It’s sign she hath been liberal and free.

YORK: And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.
Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee:
Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.