Henry V: Act 3, Scene 7

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    The French camp, near Agincourt:

    Scene Summary

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    French camp the night before Agincourt. The Constable, the Dauphin and the other nobles compete to praise their horses and their armour. They mock the English as exhausted and half-dead. The Dauphin cannot wait for morning.

    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