"Ye know not, weak souls, that ye are the rights Of a wrong'd mother. I, for my part, love Who honours me; who injures me, I hate; And should this be my own begotten son, He is for this more hateful. I gave life, And I will take--if he, with shameless rage, Scandal the womb that bore him. Ye proud nobles Who war against my son, ye have no right To pillage him. What injury has he done To you? what duty violated? Ambition and low envy spur ye on: I, who begot him, have a right to hate." While the English are still in their camp, little dreaming of surprise, the maiden rushes on them, conquers and disperses them. Here passes a scene between Johanna and Montgomery, a young Welsh knight, who begs for his life in a truly Homeric manner--pleading his youth, the anguish of his mother, and the sweet bride he had left upon the Severn. It is quite Homeric, professedly and successfully so, and therefore quite out of place. The Welsh knight speaks in a most unknightly strain. And the change of metre that is adopted assists in giving to the whole the air of a mere poetical exercise. The scene is not, however, without its purpose in the development of the character of the maid, because it shows how utterly she is at this time engrossed in her warlike mission; she is not a moment affected by the entreaties of Montgomery, and dooms him to death without pity. The war still continues fatal to the English. Talbot is slain. In the next scene, the ghost of this warrior appears to Johanna, under the form of a black knight with the visor closed. The apparition lures her away from the heat of the contest, and then addresses to her this solemn warning:-- "Johanna d'Arc! Up to the gates of Rheims hast thou been borne Upon the wings of victory. Now pause. Content thee with the fame that thou hast won. Let fortune go, whom thou hast held in bonds, Ere it in anger shall break loose from thee; For never is it constant to the end." Johanna, however, who can hear of nothing, and think of nothing, but of fighting for her country, and who has a particular detestation for this black knight, strikes at it with her sword. It vanishes with the appropriate accompaniments of thunder and lightning.