READ STUDY GUIDE: Act III, scenes vi–vii |
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Act III, Scene vii:
The French camp, near Agincourt.
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? |
| 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 compos'd to my 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 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 your strait |
| strossers. |
| CONSTABLE: |
| You have good judgment in horsemanship. |
| DAUPHIN: |
| Be warn'd by me, then; they that ride so and ride not warily, |
| fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my mistress. |
| 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 la |
| truie lavee au bourbier." Thou mak'st use of anything. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| CONSTABLE: |
| I will not say so, for fear I should be fac'd 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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 car'd not |
| who knew it. |
| ORLEANS: |
| He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him. |
| CONSTABLE: |
| By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but his |
| lackey. 'Tis a hooded valour; and when it appears, it will |
| bate. |
| 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 plac'd. There stands your friend for the devil; have at |
| the very eye of that proverb with "A 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. |
| [Enter a Messenger.] |
| MESSENGER: |
| My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen |
| hundred paces of your tents. |
| CONSTABLE: |
| Who hath measur'd the ground? |
| MESSENGER: |
| The Lord Grandpre. |
| CONSTABLE: |
| A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were 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-brain'd followers so far out of his |
| knowledge! |
| 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 creatures. Their |
| mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. |
| ORLEANS: |
| Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear |
| and have their heads crush'd like rotten apples! You may as well |
| say, that's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip |
| of a lion. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. |
| [Exeunt.] |
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