The Life Of King Henry The Fifth

1 Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, Dauphin
2 with others.
3 CONSTABLE.
4 Tut! I have the best armour of the world.
5 Would it were day!
6 ORLEANS.
7 You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.
8 CONSTABLE.
9 It is the best horse of Europe.
10 ORLEANS.
11 Will it never be morning?
12 DAUPHIN.
13 My Lord of Orleans, and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and
14 armour?
15 ORLEANS.
16 You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.
17 DAUPHIN.
18 What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that
19 treads but on four pasterns. Ch’ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his
20 entrails were hairs; _le cheval volant_, the Pegasus, _qui a les
21 narines de feu!_ When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk. He trots the
22 air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is
23 more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
24 ORLEANS.
25 He’s of the colour of the nutmeg.
26 DAUPHIN.
27 And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus. He is pure
28 air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in
29 him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him. He is
30 indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.
31 CONSTABLE.
32 Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
33 DAUPHIN.
34 It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a
35 monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.
36 ORLEANS.
37 No more, cousin.
38 DAUPHIN.
39 Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of the lark to
40 the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey. It is a
41 theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and
42 my horse is argument for them all. ’Tis a subject for a sovereign to
43 reason on, and for a sovereign’s sovereign to ride on; and for the
44 world, familiar to us and unknown, to lay apart their particular
45 functions and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and
46 began thus: “Wonder of nature,”—
47 ORLEANS.
48 I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.
49 DAUPHIN.
50 Then did they imitate that which I compos’d to my courser, for my horse
51 is my mistress.
52 ORLEANS.
53 Your mistress bears well.
54 DAUPHIN.
55 Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and
56 particular mistress.
57 CONSTABLE.
58 Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.
59 DAUPHIN.
60 So perhaps did yours.
61 CONSTABLE.
62 Mine was not bridled.
63 DAUPHIN.
64 O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kern of
65 Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait strossers.
66 CONSTABLE.
67 You have good judgment in horsemanship.
68 DAUPHIN.
69 Be warn’d by me, then; they that ride so and ride not warily, fall into
70 foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my mistress.
71 CONSTABLE.
72 I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
73 DAUPHIN.
74 I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
75 CONSTABLE.
76 I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress.
77 DAUPHIN.
78 “_Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au
79 bourbier_.” Thou mak’st use of anything.
80 CONSTABLE.
81 Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such proverb so
82 little kin to the purpose.
83 RAMBURES.
84 My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your tent tonight, are
85 those stars or suns upon it?
86 CONSTABLE.
87 Stars, my lord.
88 DAUPHIN.
89 Some of them will fall tomorrow, I hope.
90 CONSTABLE.
91 And yet my sky shall not want.
92 DAUPHIN.
93 That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere more honour
94 some were away.
95 CONSTABLE.
96 Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were
97 some of your brags dismounted.
98 DAUPHIN.
99 Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I
100 will trot tomorrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English
101 faces.
102 CONSTABLE.
103 I will not say so, for fear I should be fac’d out of my way. But I
104 would it were morning; for I would fain be about the ears of the
105 English.
106 RAMBURES.
107 Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
108 CONSTABLE.
109 You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
110 DAUPHIN.
111 ’Tis midnight; I’ll go arm myself.
112 [_Exit._]
113 ORLEANS.
114 The Dauphin longs for morning.
115 RAMBURES.
116 He longs to eat the English.
117 CONSTABLE.
118 I think he will eat all he kills.
119 ORLEANS.
120 By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.
121 CONSTABLE.
122 Swear by her foot that she may tread out the oath.
123 ORLEANS.
124 He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
125 CONSTABLE.
126 Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.
127 ORLEANS.
128 He never did harm, that I heard of.
129 CONSTABLE.
130 Nor will do none tomorrow. He will keep that good name still.
131 ORLEANS.
132 I know him to be valiant.
133 CONSTABLE.
134 I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
135 ORLEANS.
136 What’s he?
137 CONSTABLE.
138 Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car’d not who knew it.
139 ORLEANS.
140 He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
141 CONSTABLE.
142 By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but his lackey. ’Tis
143 a hooded valour; and when it appears, it will bate.
144 ORLEANS.
145 “Ill will never said well.”
146 CONSTABLE.
147 I will cap that proverb with “There is flattery in friendship.”
148 ORLEANS.
149 And I will take up that with “Give the devil his due.”
150 CONSTABLE.
151 Well plac’d. There stands your friend for the devil; have at the very
152 eye of that proverb with “A pox of the devil.”
153 ORLEANS.
154 You are the better at proverbs, by how much “A fool’s bolt is soon
155 shot.”
156 CONSTABLE.
157 You have shot over.
158 ORLEANS.
159 ’Tis not the first time you were overshot.
160 Enter a Messenger.
161 MESSENGER.
162 My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of
163 your tents.
164 CONSTABLE.
165 Who hath measur’d the ground?
166 MESSENGER.
167 The Lord Grandpré.
168 CONSTABLE.
169 A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day! Alas, poor
170 Harry of England, he longs not for the dawning as we do.
171 ORLEANS.
172 What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of England, to mope
173 with his fat-brain’d followers so far out of his knowledge!
174 CONSTABLE.
175 If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
176 ORLEANS.
177 That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they
178 could never wear such heavy head-pieces.
179 RAMBURES.
180 That island of England breeds very valiant creatures. Their mastiffs
181 are of unmatchable courage.
182 ORLEANS.
183 Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and
184 have their heads crush’d like rotten apples! You may as well say,
185 that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
186 CONSTABLE.
187 Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the mastiffs in robustious
188 and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives; and then,
189 give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like
190 wolves and fight like devils.
191 ORLEANS.
192 Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
193 CONSTABLE.
194 Then shall we find tomorrow they have only stomachs to eat and none to
195 fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we about it?
196 ORLEANS.
197 It is now two o’clock; but, let me see, by ten
198 We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
199 [_Exeunt._]