| [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 composed 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 straight strossers. |
| Constable | You have good judgment in horsemanship. |
| DAUPHIN | Be 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. |
| 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 makest use of any thing. |
| 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 faced 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 cared not who knew it |
| ORLEANS | He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him. |
| Constable | By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body 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 placed: 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 measured 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-brained 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 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. |
| 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] |