These
are the city gates of Rouen,
Through
which our policy must make a breach:
-Joan La Pucelle
King Henry the Sixth Part I Act
III, scene ii Line 1
I believe the word ‘policy’ translates more or less to
‘strategy’ in this line. And ‘Pucelle’ is ‘Maid’, which is the shortened
version of Maid of Orleans, which is another title for Joan of Arc. And if we
read the setup for this scene (which we might as well since we’re at the very
beginning of it) we will see that we are outside the town of Rouen, France with
Joan and four disguised soldiers ‘with sacks upon their backs’. There, that
should be all you need to know to understand where we’re at here.
Got it? Yes, that’s right, Joan of Arc and four guys
disguised as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are planning on sneaking into the
town of Rouen. No wait, that can’t be right. But we’re close.
Okay, let’s take a step back. The line is pretty
self-explanatory. This gate is the key to their strategy to getting into the
city. Now of course if she was there in reality she wouldn’t have to explain to
the four guys that these were the gates to the city of Rouen because you’d
think that by the time they got to the gates with the sacks on their backs
those four guys would probably know where they were. However, the audience
watching the play probably has no idea where they are or what they’re doing, so
the actor playing Joan uses this line to set the scene for everyone. So it’s a
scene setter. Is this the first time we’ve gotten the very first line of a
scene? I don’t think so. I guess some scenes need a scene setting line more
than others. This play seems to bop around to different places (albeit like
most of them do) with battles and such, so I suppose Will felt we should know
where we were to start this scene. Okay.
Now the other kind of interesting thing is this Joan La
Pucelle character. Yes, this is Joan of Arc (apparently known as Joan La
Pucelle in sixteenth century England) and I had no idea she showed up in Will’s
history plays. Did you? Or maybe you’re saying ‘who’s Joan of Arc?’ I hope
you’re not saying that. Even if you don’t know much about her (I don’t), you
must surely have heard of her or seen pics of this young woman in a suit of
armor. No? No worries, I’ll find one to add to this post. Anyway, yeah, she’s
prominent in this particular play. Not sure if she meets her demise in this one
or not (burned at the stake. Ring a bell?)
So since a picture is worth a thousand words (I wonder if
Will would have agreed with that statement?), here’s a pic of me and my friend
re-enacting this scene. You can see that he’s saying the line ‘These are the
city gates of Rouen, through which our policy must make a breach.’ You’ll have
to take my word for it that he did a good job with his line. And I’m standing
there with a sack on my back. It kinda looks like I’m saying ‘These gates?
Really?’ even though my line was supposed to be ‘Our sacks shall be a mean to
sack the city.’ We didn’t have anyone else to play the other three soldiers,
but you can use your imagination and picture them standing to the left, behind me
just out of view.
Does that help? I'll try to find a picture of St. Joan of Arc? Yes, they made her a saint. I don’t know that
whole story. I know my wife read a book on her, but I didn’t, so I really can’t
give you much more info on her. Of course, you can use the Google.
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