CTG

  • The Death of the Talbots

    The Death of the Talbots

    I’m not sure what to say about this. There is tragedy in knowing that each is correct in wanting to stay and fight and allowing the other to flee, but both being unable to allow for it.

    And it’s hard to know what is the right thing to do here.

    There is value in one of them living.

    Above all else, stay alive.

    Right?

    But at what cost?

    JOHN TALBOT

    And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?
    No more can I be sever’d from your side,
    Than can yourself yourself in twain divide:
    Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;
    For live I will not, if my father die.

    Henry VI Part I, Act IV, Scene 5

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  • The Owl of Death

    The Owl of Death

    I’m getting more and more into Talbot.

    “…the fury of my three attendants,”

    TALBOT

    Go to the gates of Bourdeaux, trumpeter:
    Summon their general unto the wall.

    Trumpet sounds. Enter General and others, aloft

    English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,
    Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
    And thus he would: Open your city gates;
    Be humble to us; call my sovereign yours,
    And do him homage as obedient subjects;
    And I’ll withdraw me and my bloody power:
    But, if you frown upon this proffer’d peace,
    You tempt the fury of my three attendants,
    Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;
    Who in a moment even with the earth
    Shall lay your stately and air-braving towers,
    If you forsake the offer of their love.

    King Henry VI, Act IV, Scene 2

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  • Scepters in Children’s Hands

    Scepters in Children’s Hands

    Dangerous.

    EXETER

    Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;
    For, had the passions of thy heart burst out,
    I fear we should have seen decipher’d there
    More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,
    Than yet can be imagined or supposed.
    But howsoe’er, no simple man that sees
    This jarring discord of nobility,
    This shouldering of each other in the court,
    This factious bandying of their favourites,
    But that it doth presage some ill event.
    ‘Tis much when sceptres are in children’s hands;
    But more when envy breeds unkind division;
    There comes the rain, there begins confusion.

    King Henry VI, Act IV, Scene 1

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  • One sudden foil

    One sudden foil

    If only there were more leaders who took this approach.

    JOAN LA PUCELLE

    Dismay not, princes, at this accident,
    Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered:
    Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,
    For things that are not to be remedied.
    Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while
    And like a peacock sweep along his tail;
    We’ll pull his plumes and take away his train,
    If Dauphin and the rest will be but ruled.

    CHARLES

    We have been guided by thee hitherto,
    And of thy cunning had no diffidence:
    One sudden foil shall never breed distrust.

    King Henry VI, Act III, Scene 3

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  • There’s only one way out

    There’s only one way out

    You do the best you can, but in the end, it is all the same.

    TALBOT
    But yet, before we go, let’s not forget
    The noble Duke of Bedford late deceased,
    But see his exequies fulfill’d in Rouen:
    A braver soldier never couched lance,
    A gentler heart did never sway in court;
    But kings and mightiest potentates must die,
    For that’s the end of human misery.

    King Henry VI, Act III, Scene 2

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“Above all else, stay alive.” (more…)

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