Henry V
| ACT III SCENE VII | The French camp, near Agincourt | |
| Enter the Constable of France, the LORD RAMBURES, ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, with others. | ||
| Constable | Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day! | |
| ORLEANS | You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due. | |
| Constable | It is the best horse of Europe. | |
| ORLEANS | Will it never be morning? | 5 |
| DAUPHIN | My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you | |
| talk of horse and armour? | ||
| ORLEANS | You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world. | |
| DAUPHIN | What a long night is this! I will not change my | |
| horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. | 10 | |
| Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his | ||
| entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, | ||
| chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I | ||
| soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth | ||
| sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his | 15 | |
| hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. | ||
| ORLEANS | He’s of the colour of the nutmeg. | |
| DAUPHIN | And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for | |
| Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull | ||
| elements of earth and water never appear in him, but | 20 | |
| only in Patient stillness while his rider mounts | ||
| him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you | ||
| may call beasts. | ||
| Constable | Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. | |
| DAUPHIN | It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the | 25 |
| bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage. | ||
| ORLEANS | No more, cousin. | |
| DAUPHIN | Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the | |
| rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary | ||
| deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as | 30 | |
| fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent | ||
| tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: | ||
| ’tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for | ||
| a sovereign’s sovereign to ride on; and for the | ||
| world, familiar to us and unknown to lay apart | 35 | |
| their particular functions and wonder at him. I | ||
| once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: | ||
| ‘Wonder of nature,’– | ||
| ORLEANS | I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress. | |
| DAUPHIN | Then did they imitate that which I composed to my | 40 |
| courser, for my horse is my mistress. | ||
| ORLEANS | Your mistress bears well. | |
| DAUPHIN | Me well; which is the prescript praise and | |
| perfection of a good and particular mistress. | ||
| Constable | Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly | 45 |
| shook your back. | ||
| DAUPHIN | So perhaps did yours. | |
| Constable | Mine was not bridled. | |
| DAUPHIN | O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, | |
| like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in | 50 | |
| your straight strossers. | ||
| Constable | You have good judgment in horsemanship. | |
| DAUPHIN | Be warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride | |
| not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have | ||
| my horse to my mistress. | 55 | |
| Constable | I had as lief have my mistress a jade. | |
| DAUPHIN | I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair. | |
| Constable | I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow | |
| to my mistress. | ||
| DAUPHIN | ‘Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et | 60 |
| la truie lavee au bourbier;’ thou makest use of any thing. | ||
| Constable | Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any | |
| such proverb so little kin to the purpose. | ||
| RAMBURES | My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent | |
| to-night, are those stars or suns upon it? | 65 | |
| Constable | Stars, my lord. | |
| DAUPHIN | Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. | |
| Constable | And yet my sky shall not want. | |
| DAUPHIN | That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and | |
| ’twere more honour some were away. | 70 | |
| Constable | Even as your horse bears your praises; who would | |
| trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted. | ||
| DAUPHIN | Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will | |
| it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and | ||
| my way shall be paved with English faces. | 75 | |
| Constable | I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of | |
| my way: but I would it were morning; for I would | ||
| fain be about the ears of the English. | ||
| RAMBURES | Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners? | |
| Constable | You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them. | 80 |
| DAUPHIN | ‘Tis midnight; I’ll go arm myself. | |
| Exit. | ||
| ORLEANS | The Dauphin longs for morning. | |
| RAMBURES | He longs to eat the English. | |
| Constable | I think he will eat all he kills. | |
| ORLEANS | By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince. | 85 |
| Constable | Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath. | |
| ORLEANS | He is simply the most active gentleman of France. | |
| Constable | Doing is activity; and he will still be doing. | |
| ORLEANS | He never did harm, that I heard of. | |
| Constable | Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still. | 90 |
| ORLEANS | I know him to be valiant. | |
| Constable | I was told that by one that knows him better than | |
| you. | ||
| ORLEANS | What’s he? | |
| Constable | Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared | 95 |
| not who knew it | ||
| ORLEANS | He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him. | |
| Constable | By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it | |
| but his lackey: ’tis a hooded valour; and when it | ||
| appears, it will bate. | 100 | |
| ORLEANS | Ill will never said well. | |
| Constable | I will cap that proverb with ‘There is flattery in friendship.’ | |
| ORLEANS | And I will take up that with ‘Give the devil his due.’ | |
| Constable | Well placed: there stands your friend for the | |
| devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with ‘A | 105 | |
| pox of the devil.’ | ||
| ORLEANS | You are the better at proverbs, by how much ‘A | |
| fool’s bolt is soon shot.’ | ||
| Constable | You have shot over. | |
| ORLEANS | ‘Tis not the first time you were overshot. | 110 |
| Enter a Messenger | ||
| Messenger | My lord high constable, the English lie within | |
| fifteen hundred paces of your tents. | ||
| Constable | Who hath measured the ground? | |
| Messenger | The Lord Grandpre. | |
| Constable | A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were | 115 |
| day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for | ||
| the dawning as we do. | ||
| ORLEANS | What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of | |
| England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so | ||
| far out of his knowledge! | 120 | |
| Constable | If the English had any apprehension, they would run away. | |
| ORLEANS | That they lack; for if their heads had any | |
| intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy | ||
| head-pieces. | ||
| RAMBURES | That island of England breeds very valiant | 125 |
| creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. | ||
| ORLEANS | Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a | |
| Russian bear and have their heads crushed like | ||
| rotten apples! You may as well say, that’s a | ||
| valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion. | 130 | |
| Constable | Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the | |
| mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving | ||
| their wits with their wives: and then give them | ||
| great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will | ||
| eat like wolves and fight like devils. | 135 | |
| ORLEANS | Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef. | |
| Constable | Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs | |
| to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm: | ||
| come, shall we about it? | ||
| ORLEANS | It is now two o’clock: but, let me see, by ten | 140 |
| We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. | ||
| Exeunt |
Henry V, Act 4, Scene 1