Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
The coward horfe, that bears me, fall and die!
And like me to the peafant boys of France; 3
To be fhame's fcorn, and fubject of mifchance!
Surely, by all the glory you have won,

And if I fly, I am not Talbot's fon:

Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;
If fon to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.

obfcurity, that I am willing to think it reftores the author's mean

Sir T. Hanmer reads:

O what advantage,

THEOBALD.

which I have followed, though Mr. Theobald's conje&ure may be well enough admitted. JOHNSON.

I have no doubt but the old reading is right, and the amendment unnecellary; the paffage being better as it flood originally, if pointed thus:

On that advantage, bought with fuch a shame,
(To fave a paltry life, and flay bright fame,)
Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,

The coward horse, that bears me, fall and die!

The dividing the fentence into two diftin&t parts, occafioned the obfcurity of it, which this method of printing removes.

M. MASON.

The fenfe is Before young Talbot fly from his father, (in order to fave his life while he destroys his character,) on, or for the fake of, the advantages you mention, namely, preferving our houfehold's name, &c. may my coward horfe drop down dead!

MALONE.

3 And like me to the peasant boys of France; ] To like one to the peasants is, to compare, to level by comparison; the line is therefore intelligible enough by itself, but in this fenfe it wants connection. Sir T. Hanmer reads,-And leave me, which makes a clear fenfe and juft confequence. But as change is not to be allowed without neceffity, have fuffered like to ftand, becaufe I fuppofe the author meant the fame as make like, or reduce to a level with.

JOHNSON.

when the prince broke STEEVENS.

So, in King Henry IV. Part II: thy head for liking his father to a finging man" &c.

TAL. Then follow thou thy defperate fire of

Crete,

4

Thou Icarus; thy life to me is fweet:

If thou wilt fight by thy father's fide;

And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.

Another Part of the fame.

Alarum: Excurfions. Enter TALBOT wounded, fup ported by a Servant.

TAL. Where is my other life?— mine own is

gone;

O, where's young Talbot? where is valiant John?Triumphant death, fmear'd with captivity! Young Talbot's valour makes me fmile at thee :When he perceiv'd me fhrink, and on my knee, His bloody fword he brandifh'd over me,

thy defperate fire of Crete,

Thou Icarus;] So, in the third part of this play:
"What a peevish fool was that of Crete?"

Again :

STEEVE NS.

"I, Dædalus; my poor boy, Icarus-." 5 Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity!] That is, death ftained and difhonoured with captivity. JOHNSON.

Death ftained by my being made a captive and dying in captivity. The author when he firft addreffes death, and ufes the epithet triumphant, confiders him as a person who had triumphed over him by plunging his dart in his breaft. In the latter part of the line, if Dr. Johnson has rightly explained it, death muft have its ordinary fignification. I think light, of my death, though rendered difgraceful by captivity," &c. Perhaps however the conftruction intended by the poet was -Young Talbot's valour makes me, fmeared with captivity, fmile, &c. If fo, there thould be a comma after captivity. MALONE.

And, like a hungry lion, did commence
Rough deeds of rage, and ftern impatience;
But when my angry guardant stood alone,
Tend'ring my ruin, and affail'd of none,
Dizzy-ey'd fury, and great rage of heart,
Suddenly made him from my fide to flart
Into the cluft'ring battle of the French:
And in that fea of blood my boy did drench
His overmounting fpirit; and there dy'd
My Icarus, my bloffom, in his pride.

Enter Soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT.

SERV. O my dear lord! lo, where your fon is

borne !

TAL. Thou antick death, which laugh'ft us here to fcorn,

Tend'ring my ruin, ] Watching me with tenderness in my fall.
JOHNSON.

I adhere to the old reading. So, in Hamlet, Polonius fays to Ophelia :

Tender yourself more dearly." STEEVENS.

Again, in King Henry VI. Part II:

"I tender fo the fafety of my liege." MALone.

5 the body of John Talbot. ] This John Talbot was the eldeft fon of the firft Earl by his fecond wife, and was Viscount Lille, when he was killed with his father, in endeavouring to relieve Chatillon, after the battle of Bourdeaux, in the year 1453. was created Viscount Lifle in 1451. John, the earl's eldeft fon by his first wife, was flain at the battle of Northampton in 1460.

He

MALONE.

Thou antick death,] The fool, or antick of the play, made fport
JOHNSON.

by mocking the graver perfonages.

In King Richard II. we have the fame image:

within the hollow crown

"That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Anon, from thy infulting tyranny,
Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,

Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,"
In thy despite, fhall 'fcape mortality.-

O thou whofe wounds become hard-favour'd death,
Speak to thy father, ere thou yield thy breath:
Brave death by fpeaking, whether he will, or no;
Imagine him a Frenchman, and thy foc.-
Poor boy! he fmiles, methinks; as who fhould

fay

Had death been French, then death had died to

day.

Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms;
My spirit can no longer bear these harms.

"Keeps death his court: and there the antick fits
Scoffing his flate, and grinning at his pomp."

STEEVENS.

It is not improbable that Shakspeare borrowed this idea from one of the cuts to that moft exquifite work called Imagines Mortis, commonly afcribed to the pencil of Holbein, but without any authority. See the 7th print.

DOUCE.

winged through the lither fky,] Lither is flexible or yielding.

In much the fame fenfe Milton fays:

He with broad fails

"Winnow'd the buxom air."

That is, the obfèquious air. JOHNSON.

Lither is the comparative of the adjective lithe.

So, in Lyly's Endymion, 1591:

to breed numbnefs or litherness."

Litherness is limbernefs, or yielding weakness.

Again, in Look about you, 1600:

"I'll bring his lither legs in better frame."

Milton might have borrowed the expreffion from Spenfer,
Gower, who uses it in the Prologue to his Confeffio Amantis :
"That unto him whiche the head is,

"The membres buxom fhall bowe."

ог

In the old fervice of matrimony, the wife was enjoined to be buxom both at bed and board. Buxom therefore anciently fignified obedient or yielding. Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, ufes the word in the fame fense: are fo buxome to their STEEVENS.

fhameless defires," &c.

Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have, Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave, [Dies.

Alarums. Exeunt Soldiers and Servant, leaving the two bodies. Enter CHARLES, ALENÇON, BurGUNDY, Bastard, LA PUCELLE, and Forces.

CHAR. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,

We fhould have found a bloody day of this.

BAST. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging

Did flefh his puny fword in Frenchmen's blood!?
PUC. Once I encounter'd him, and thus I faid,
Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid:
But with a proud, majestical, high scorn,-
He aufwer'd thus; Young Talbot was not born
To be the pillage of a giglot wench :
So, rufhing in the bowels of the French,

2

3

raging-wood,] That is, raging mad. So, in Heywood's Dialogues, containing a Number of effectual Proverbs, 1562: She was, as they fay, horn-wood."

Again, in The longer thou liveft the more fool thou art, 1570: "He will fight as he were wood." STEEVens.

9

in Frenchmen's blood!] The return of rhyme where young Talbot is again mentioned, and in no other place, ftrengthens the fufpicion that thefe verfes were originally part of fome other work, and were copied here only to fave the trouble of compofing new. JOHNSON.

2

of a giglot wench:] Giglot is a wanton, or a frumpet. JOHNSON.

The word is used by Gafcoigne and other authors, though now quite obfolete.

So, in the play of Orlando Furiofo, 1594:

་

"Whofe choice is like that Greekish giglòt's love,
"That left her lord, prince Menelaus."

See Vol. VI. p. 201, n. 4. STEEVENS.