Charles promises Joan a monument more magnificent than 'Rhodope's of Memphis' — almost certainly meaning the Great Pyramid of Giza, which Renaissance scholars sometimes misattributed to a legendary Greek courtesan named Rhodope. The source is probably Herodotus's Histories, filtered through several unreliable intermediaries. The factual error is interesting, but the symbolic resonance is more interesting still. If Shakespeare (or his source) knew Rhodope was a courtesan, then Charles's comparison lands as a spectacular own-goal: he's honoring France's virgin warrior-saint with a monument he associates with a famous sex worker. This would read as darkly comic to an Elizabethan audience familiar with classical mythology. If Shakespeare didn't know — if it's just a historical slip — the play still uses it: the audience's unease about Joan's sexuality (is she really a virgin? is she Charles's lover?) is activated at exactly the moment when Charles most loudly proclaims her honor. Either way, the scene is doing something complicated underneath its surface triumphalism.
Advance our waving colours on the walls;
Rescued is Orleans from the English.
Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform’d her word.
Raise our waving banners on the walls. Let the French colors fly from every tower.
Get our flags up on the walls. Show them everywhere.
flags up walls everywhere French colors victory
Divinest creature, Astraea’s daughter,
How shall I honour thee for this success?
Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens
That one day bloom’d and fruitful were the next.
France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess!
Recover’d is the town of Orleans.
More blessed hap did ne’er befall our state.
Divine creature, daughter of Astraea the goddess of justice, your valor has saved us. You are more than mortal—you are heaven's answer to our prayers.
You're like a goddess. Astraea herself couldn't be more perfect. You saved us. You're not human.
goddess Astraea daughter of heaven you saved us impossible perfect
Scene 1-6 is the structural mirror of scene 1-1. The play opened with England in black, mourning Henry V, flags draped over a coffin, three messengers delivering progressively worse news. It closes Act 1 with France on the walls, flags flying, the Dauphin promising bells and bonfires and processions. Both scenes are ceremonial — more ritual than drama. Both are about how nations perform grief and triumph. And crucially, both are excessive: Bedford's lament in 1-1 was overblown ('Hung be the heavens with black'), and Charles's praise here is equally overblown ('France's new patron saint'). Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that both sides are equally prone to mythologizing — equally given to turning military events into grand narratives that may not survive contact with reality. The play will spend the next four acts puncturing both myths.
Reignier (Duke of Anjou, father of Margaret) tends toward enthusiasm without much depth — he's the first to call for bells and bonfires, the cheerleader of the French command. He'll matter more in Act 5 when his daughter Margaret becomes Suffolk's obsession and eventually Henry VI's queen.
Why ring not bells aloud throughout the town?
Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires
And feast and banquet in the open streets
To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.
ALENÇON.
All France will be replete with mirth and joy
When they shall hear how we have play’d the men.
Why do not the bells ring throughout the town? Let all of Orleans rejoice!
Ring the bells! The whole town should be celebrating!
bells ring them celerate Orleans joy
’Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won;
For which I will divide my crown with her,
And all the priests and friars in my realm
Shall in procession sing her endless praise.
A statelier pyramis to her I’ll rear
Than Rhodope’s of Memphis ever was;
In memory of her when she is dead,
Her ashes, in an urn more precious
Than the rich-jewel’d coffer of Darius,
Transported shall be at high festivals
Before the kings and queens of France.
No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,
But Joan la Pucelle shall be France’s saint.
Come in, and let us banquet royally
After this golden day of victory.
'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won. She alone deserves the praise and honor.
It's Joan. She did this. All the credit goes to her.
Joan all her all credit all glory all honor
The Reckoning
This scene is pure victory lap — and Shakespeare knows exactly what he's doing with it. Charles's praise of Joan escalates from 'Astraea's daughter' (goddess of justice) to 'new patron saint of France', promising her a pyramid taller than any of the ancient world's wonders, her ashes transported before kings at festivals. It's so excessive it tips into absurdity. The Elizabethan audience, primed to distrust French excess and Joan's divine claims alike, was almost certainly meant to read this as hubris — the kind of overconfidence that precedes catastrophe. The scene is seven chunks long. Its brevity is itself the point: this triumph will not last.
If this happened today…
A country retakes a besieged city it had nearly lost. The liberator — an outsider, a woman no one believed in — stands on the walls for the cameras. The president promises her a state funeral when she dies, a national holiday named after her, a monument bigger than the Lincoln Memorial. The crowd goes wild. Nobody mentions that the war isn't over.