Henry V
ACT IV SCENE II | The French camp. | |
Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and others. | ||
ORLEANS | The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords! | |
DAUPHIN | Montez A cheval! My horse! varlet! laquais! ha! | |
ORLEANS | O brave spirit! | |
DAUPHIN | Via! les eaux et la terre. | 5 |
ORLEANS | Rien puis? L’air et la feu. | |
DAUPHIN | Ciel, cousin Orleans. | |
Enter Constable | ||
Now, my lord constable! | ||
Constable | Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh! | |
DAUPHIN | Mount them, and make incision in their hides, | 10 |
That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, | ||
And dout them with superfluous courage, ha! | ||
RAMBURES | What, will you have them weep our horses’ blood? | |
How shall we, then, behold their natural tears? | ||
Enter Messenger | ||
Messenger | The English are embattled, you French peers. | 15 |
Constable | To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse! | |
Do but behold yon poor and starved band, | ||
And your fair show shall suck away their souls, | ||
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men. | ||
There is not work enough for all our hands; | 20 | |
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins | ||
To give each naked curtle-axe a stain, | ||
That our French gallants shall to-day draw out, | ||
And sheathe for lack of sport: let us but blow on them, | ||
The vapour of our valour will o’erturn them. | 25 | |
‘Tis positive ‘gainst all exceptions, lords, | ||
That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants, | ||
Who in unnecessary action swarm | ||
About our squares of battle, were enow | ||
To purge this field of such a hilding foe, | 30 | |
Though we upon this mountain’s basis by | ||
Took stand for idle speculation: | ||
But that our honours must not. What’s to say? | ||
A very little little let us do. | ||
And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound | 35 | |
The tucket sonance and the note to mount; | ||
For our approach shall so much dare the field | ||
That England shall couch down in fear and yield. | ||
Enter GRANDPRE | ||
GRANDPRE | Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? | |
Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones, | 40 | |
Ill-favouredly become the morning field: | ||
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose, | ||
And our air shakes them passing scornfully: | ||
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar’d host | ||
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps: | 45 | |
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, | ||
With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades | ||
Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips, | ||
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes | ||
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit | 50 | |
Lies foul with chew’d grass, still and motionless; | ||
And their executors, the knavish crows, | ||
Fly o’er them, all impatient for their hour. | ||
Description cannot suit itself in words | ||
To demonstrate the life of such a battle | 55 | |
In life so lifeless as it shows itself. | ||
Constable | They have said their prayers, and they stay for death. | |
DAUPHIN | Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits | |
And give their fasting horses provender, | ||
And after fight with them? | 60 | |
Constable | I stay but for my guidon: to the field! | |
I will the banner from a trumpet take, | ||
And use it for my haste. Come, come, away! | ||
The sun is high, and we outwear the day. | ||
Exeunt |
Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3