SCENE V. The Same. Before one of the Gates. Alarum. Skirmishings. TALBOT pursueth the Dauphin, and driveth him in: then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE, driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBot. TAL. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force? Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them; Enter LA PUCELLE. Here, here she comes:--I'll have a bout with thee; Devil, or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee: thee. [They fight. TAL. 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. Puc. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come: I must go victual Orleans forthwith. O'ertake me, if thou canst; I scorn thy strength. 4 Blood will I draw on thee,] The superstition of those times taught that he that could draw the witch's blood, was free from her power. JOHNSON. HUNGER-starved-] The same epithet is, I think, used by Shakspeare, [Henry VI. P. III. Act I. Sc. IV.] The old copy has-hungry-starved. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE. Why not hungry, starved, without the hyphen? BOSWELL. This day is ours, as many more shall be. [PUCELLE enters the Town, with Soldiers. TAL. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel 6 ; I know not where I am, nor what I do: A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal, Are from their hives, and houses, driven away. [A short Alarum. 8 As you fly from your oft-subdued slaves. [Alarum. 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. [Alarum. Retreat. Exeuut TALBOT and his Forces, &c. 6 LIKE A potter's WHEEL;] This idea might have been caught from Psalm 1xxxiii. 13: " Make them like unto a wheel, and as the stubble before the wind." STEEVENS. 7 - by fear, &c.] See Hannibal's stratagem to escape by fixing bundles of lighted twigs on the horns of oxen, recorded in Livy, lib. xxii. c. xvi. HOLT WHITE. - SO TIMOROUS -] Old copy-treacherous. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. SCENE VI. The Same. Enter, on the Walls, PUCELLE, Charles, REIGNIER, ALENCON, and Soldiers. Puc. Advance our waving colours on the walls; Rescu'd is Orleans from the English : 9 Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word. 9 from the English WOLVES, &c.] Thus the second folio. The first omits the word-wolves. STEEVENS. The editor of the second folio, not perceiving that English was used as a trisyllable, arbitrarily reads-English wolves; in which he has been followed by all the subsequent editors. So, in the next line but one, he reads-bright Astrea, not observing that Astrea, by a licentious pronunciation, was used by the author of this play, as if written Asterca. So monstrous is made a trisyllable; monsterous. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, Two Gentlemen of Verona, vol. iv. p. 31, and p. 137. MALONE. Here again I must follow the second folio, to which we are indebted for former and numerous emendations received even by Mr. Malone. Shakspeare has frequently the same image. So, the French in King Henry V. speaking of the English: "They will eat like wolves, and fight like devils." If Pucelle, by this term, does not allude to the hunger or fierceness of the English, she refers to the wolves by which their kingdom was formerly infested. So, in King Henry IV. Part II.: "Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants." As no example of the proper name-Astræa, pronounced as a quadrisyllable, is given by Mr. Malone, or has occurred to me, I also think myself authorized to receive-bright, the necessary epithet supplied by the second folio. STEEVENS. -like Adonis' gardens,] It may not be impertinent to take notice of a dispute between four criticks, of very different orders, upon this very important point of the "gardens of Adonis." Milton had said: This day is ours, as many more shall be. [PUCELLE enters the Town, with Soldiers. TAL. 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, Are from their hives, and houses, driven away. [A short Alarum. 8 As you fly from your oft-subdued slaves. Alarum. Another skirmish. It will not be :-Retire into your trenches: In spite of us, or aught that we could do. The shame hereof will make me hide my head. his Forces, &c. Exeuut TALBOT and 6 -LIKE A potter's WHEEL;] This idea might have been caught from Psalm lxxxiii. 13: " Make them like unto a wheel, and as the stubble before the wind." STEEVENS. 7 by fear, &c.] See Hannibal's stratagem to escape by fixing bundles of lighted twigs on the horns of oxen, recorded in Livy, lib. xxii. c. xvi. HOLT WHITE. 8 —SO TIMOROUS MALONE. Mr. Pope. ] Old copy-treacherous. Corrected by SCENE VI. The Same. Enter, on the Walls, PUCELLE, Charles, Reignier, ALENCON, and Soldiers. Puc. Advance our waving colours on the walls; Rescu'd is Orleans from the English 9: Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word. 9 - from the English WOLVES, &c.] Thus the second folio. The first omits the word-wolves. STEEVENS. The editor of the second folio, not perceiving that English was used as a trisyllable, arbitrarily reads-English wolves; in which he has been followed by all the subsequent editors. So, in the next line but one, he reads-bright Astræa, not observing that Astræa, by a licentious pronunciation, was used by the author of this play, as if written Asterca. So monstrous is made a trisyllable; monsterous. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, Two Gentlemen of Verona, vol. iv. p. 31, and p. 137. MALONE. Here again I must follow the second folio, to which we are indebted for former and numerous emendations received even by Mr. Malone. Shakspeare has frequently the same image. So, the French in King Henry V. speaking of the English: "They will eat like wolves, and fight like devils." If Pucelle, by this term, does not allude to the hunger or fierceness of the English, she refers to the wolves by which their kingdom was formerly infested. So, in King Henry IV. Part II. : "Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants." As no example of the proper name-Astræa, pronounced as a quadrisyllable, is given by Mr. Malone, or has occurred to me, I also think myself authorized to receive-bright, the necessary epithet supplied by the second folio. STEEVENS. -like Adonis' gardens,] It may not be impertinent to take notice of a dispute between four criticks, of very different orders, upon this very important point of the "gardens of Adonis." Milton had said: |