ARKCODEX
Act III, Scene 7
1The French camp, near Agincourt.
2Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, Dauphin with others.
3ConstableTut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!
4OrleansYou have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.
5ConstableIt is the best horse of Europe.
6OrleansWill it never be morning?
7DauphinMy Lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour?
8OrleansYou are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.
9DauphinWhat a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ça, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a 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.
10OrleansHe’s of the colour of the nutmeg.
11DauphinAnd 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.
12ConstableIndeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
13DauphinIt is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.
14OrleansNo more, cousin.
15DauphinNay, 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,”—
16OrleansI have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.
17DauphinThen did they imitate that which I composed to my courser, for my horse is my mistress.
18OrleansYour mistress bears well.
19DauphinMe well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.
20ConstableNay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.
21DauphinSo perhaps did yours.
22ConstableMine was not bridled.
23DauphinO then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait strossers.
24ConstableYou have good judgment in horsemanship.
25DauphinBe 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.
26ConstableI had as lief have my mistress a jade.
27DauphinI tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
28ConstableI could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress.
29Dauphin“Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier:” thou makest use of anything.
30ConstableYet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such proverb so little kin to the purpose.
31RamburesMy lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent tonight, are those stars or suns upon it?
32ConstableStars, my lord.
33DauphinSome of them will fall tomorrow, I hope.
34ConstableAnd yet my sky shall not want.
35DauphinThat may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere more honour some were away.
36ConstableEven as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.
37DauphinWould I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I will trot tomorrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces.
38ConstableI 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.
39RamburesWho will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
40ConstableYou must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
41Dauphin’Tis midnight; I’ll go arm myself. Exit.
42OrleansThe Dauphin longs for morning.
43RamburesHe longs to eat the English.
44ConstableI think he will eat all he kills.
45OrleansBy the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.
46ConstableSwear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
47OrleansHe is simply the most active gentleman of France.
48ConstableDoing is activity; and he will still be doing.
49OrleansHe never did harm, that I heard of.
50ConstableNor will do none tomorrow: he will keep that good name still.
51OrleansI know him to be valiant.
52ConstableI was told that by one that knows him better than you.
53OrleansWhat’s he?
54ConstableMarry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared not who knew it.
55OrleansHe needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
56ConstableBy my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but his lackey: ’tis a hooded valour; and when it appears, it will bate.
57OrleansIll will never said well.
58ConstableI will cap that proverb with “There is flattery in friendship.”
59OrleansAnd I will take up that with “Give the devil his due.”
60ConstableWell placed: there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with “A pox of the devil.”
61OrleansYou are the better at proverbs, by how much “A fool’s bolt is soon shot.”
62ConstableYou have shot over.
63Orleans’Tis not the first time you were overshot.
64Enter a Messenger.
65MessengerMy lord high constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents.
66ConstableWho hath measured the ground?
67MessengerThe Lord Grandpré.
68ConstableA valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning as we do.
69OrleansWhat a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so far out of his knowledge!
70ConstableIf the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
71OrleansThat they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy headpieces.
72RamburesThat island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
73OrleansFoolish 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.
74ConstableJust, 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.
75OrleansAy, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
76ConstableThen shall we find tomorrow they have only stomachs to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm: come, shall we about it?
77OrleansIt is now two o’clock: but, let me see, by ten
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. Exeunt.