SparkNotes: Complete Text of Henry V: Act III, Scene vii

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READ STUDY GUIDE: Act III, scenes vi–vii

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?

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.]

Henry V

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