[Exit Sergeant.]
Thus are poor servitors,
When others sleep upon their quiet beds,
Constrain’d to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.
Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy, and forces, with scaling-ladders.
TALBOT.
Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,
By whose approach the regions of Artois,
Walloon and Picardy are friends to us,
This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,
Having all day caroused and banqueted.
Embrace we then this opportunity,
As fitting best to quittance their deceit
Contriv’d by art and baleful sorcery.
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 practice and converse with spirits.
God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.