Page:Henry VI Part 1 (1918) Yale.djvu/15

King Henry the Sixth, I. i

Bed. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace!

Let's to the altar: heralds, wait on us:

Instead of gold we'll offer up our arms,

Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead.

Posterity, await for wretched years,

When at their mothers' moist eyes babes shall suck,

Our isle be made a marish of salt tears,

And none but women left to wail the dead.

Henry the Fifth! thy ghost I invocate:

Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils!

Combat with adverse planets in the heavens!

A far more glorious star thy soul will make,

Than Julius Cæsar, or bright—

Mess. My honourable lords, health to you all!

Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,

Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:

Guyenne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,

Paris, Gisors, Poitiers, are all quite lost.

Bed. What sayst thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?

Speak softly; or the loss of those great towns

Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.

Glo. Is Paris lost? is Roan yielded up?

If Henry were recall'd to life again

These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.

Exe. How were they lost? what treachery was us'd?

Mess. No treachery; but want of men and money.

Among the soldiers this is muttered,

 50 marish: marsh; cf. n.

60, 61 Cf. n.

64 lead: leaden wrappings

65 Roan: Rouen 