Henry V by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 7
The French camp, near Agincourt:
Constable of France : Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!
Duke of Orleans : You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.
Constable of France : It is the best horse of Europe.
Duke of Orleans : Will it never be morning?
Lewis the Dauphin : My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you
[p]talk of horse
and armour?
Duke of Orleans : You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.
Lewis the Dauphin : What a long night is this! I will not change my
[p]horse with any that
treads but on four pasterns.
[p]Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as
if his
[p]entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus,
[p]chez
les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I
[p]soar, I am a hawk: he
trots the air; the earth
[p]sings when he touches it; the basest horn
of his
[p]hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
Duke of Orleans : He's of the colour of the nutmeg.
Lewis the Dauphin : And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for
[p]Perseus: he is
pure air and fire; and the dull
[p]elements of earth and water never
appear in him, but
[p]only in Patient stillness while his rider
mounts
[p]him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you
[p]may
call beasts.
Constable of France : Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
Lewis the Dauphin : It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
[p]bidding of a
monarch and his countenance enforces homage.
Duke of Orleans : No more, cousin.
Lewis the Dauphin : Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the
[p]rising of the lark
to the lodging of the lamb, vary
[p]deserved praise on my palfrey: it
is a theme as
[p]fluent as the sea: turn the sands into
eloquent
[p]tongues, and my horse is argument for them all:
[p]'tis a
subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for
[p]a sovereign's
sovereign to ride on; and for the
[p]world, familiar to us and unknown
to lay apart
[p]their particular functions and wonder at him.
I
[p]once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus:
[p]'Wonder of
nature,'--
Duke of Orleans : I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.
Lewis the Dauphin : Then did they imitate that which I composed to my
[p]courser, for my
horse is my mistress.
Duke of Orleans : Your mistress bears well.
Lewis the Dauphin : Me well; which is the prescript praise and
[p]perfection of a good and
particular mistress.
Constable of France : Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly
[p]shook your
back.
Lewis the Dauphin : So perhaps did yours.
Constable of France : Mine was not bridled.
Lewis the Dauphin : O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode,
[p]like a kern of
Ireland, your French hose off, and in
[p]your straight strossers.
Constable of France : You have good judgment in horsemanship.
Lewis the Dauphin : Be warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride
[p]not warily, fall
into foul bogs. I had rather have
[p]my horse to my mistress.
Constable of France : I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
Lewis the Dauphin : I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
Constable of France : I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow
[p]to my
mistress.
Lewis the Dauphin : 'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et
[p]la truie lavee
au bourbier;' thou makest use of any thing.
Constable of France : Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any
[p]such proverb so
little kin to the purpose.
Rambures : My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
[p]to-night, are
those stars or suns upon it?
Constable of France : Stars, my lord.
Lewis the Dauphin : Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
Constable of France : And yet my sky shall not want.
Lewis the Dauphin : That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and
[p]'twere more
honour some were away.
Constable of France : Even as your horse bears your praises; who would
[p]trot as well, were
some of your brags dismounted.
Lewis the Dauphin : Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will
[p]it never be
day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and
[p]my way shall be paved with
English faces.
Constable of France : I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of
[p]my way: but I
would it were morning; for I would
[p]fain be about the ears of the
English.
Rambures : Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
Constable of France : You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
Lewis the Dauphin : 'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.
Duke of Orleans : The Dauphin longs for morning.
Rambures : He longs to eat the English.
Constable of France : I think he will eat all he kills.
Duke of Orleans : By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.
Constable of France : Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
Duke of Orleans : He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
Constable of France : Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.
Duke of Orleans : He never did harm, that I heard of.
Constable of France : Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still.
Duke of Orleans : I know him to be valiant.
Constable of France : I was told that by one that knows him better than
[p]you.
Duke of Orleans : What's he?
Constable of France : Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared
[p]not who knew it
Duke of Orleans : He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
Constable of France : By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it
[p]but his lackey:
'tis a hooded valour; and when it
[p]appears, it will bate.
Duke of Orleans : Ill will never said well.
Constable of France : I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in friendship.'
Duke of Orleans : And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'
Constable of France : Well placed: there stands your friend for the
[p]devil: have at the
very eye of that proverb with 'A
[p]pox of the devil.'
Duke of Orleans : You are the better at proverbs, by how much 'A
[p]fool's bolt is soon
shot.'
Constable of France : You have shot over.
Duke of Orleans : 'Tis not the first time you were overshot.
Messenger : My lord high constable, the English lie within
[p]fifteen hundred
paces of your tents.
Constable of France : Who hath measured the ground?
Messenger : The Lord Grandpre.
Constable of France : A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were
[p]day! Alas, poor
Harry of England! he longs not for
[p]the dawning as we do.
Duke of Orleans : What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of
[p]England, to mope
with his fat-brained followers so
[p]far out of his knowledge!
Constable of France : If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
Duke of Orleans : That they lack; for if their heads had any
[p]intellectual armour,
they could never wear such heavy
[p]head-pieces.
Rambures : That island of England breeds very valiant
[p]creatures; their
mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
Duke of Orleans : Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a
[p]Russian bear and
have their heads crushed like
[p]rotten apples! You may as well say,
that's a
[p]valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a
lion.
Constable of France : Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the
[p]mastiffs in
robustious and rough coming on, leaving
[p]their wits with their
wives: and then give them
[p]great meals of beef and iron and steel,
they will
[p]eat like wolves and fight like devils.
Duke of Orleans : Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
Constable of France : Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs
[p]to eat and
none to fight. Now is it time to arm:
[p]come, shall we about it?
Duke of Orleans : It is now two o'clock: but, let me see, by ten
[p]We shall have each a
hundred Englishmen.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 0
