HENRY THE FIFTH

Act 3 Scene 7

(Enter the Constable, Lord Rambures, the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon, with others)
l1l	Constable	 Tut, I have the best armour of the world.
l2l		Would it were day.
l3l	Orleans	You have an excellent armour. But let my horse
l4l		have his due.
l5l	Constable	It is the best horse of Europe.
l6l	Orleans	Will it never be morning?
l7l	[Bourbon]	My lord of Orleans and my Lord High
l8l		Constable, you talk of horse and armour?
l9l	Orleans	You are as well provided of both as any prince
l10l		in the world.
l11l	[Bourbon]	What a long night is this! I will not change
l12l		my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns.
l13l		Ah ha! He bounds from the earth as if his entrails were
l14l		hares—le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de
l15l		feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk# he trots
l16l		the air, the earth sings when he touches it, the basest
l17l		horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of
l18l		Hermes.
l19l	Orleans	He’s of the colour of the nutmeg.
l20l	[Bourbon]	And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for
l21l		Perseus. He is pure air and fire, and the dull elements
l22l		of earth and water never appear in him, but only in
l23l		patient stillness while his rider mounts him. He is
l24l		indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.
l25l	Constable	Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and
l26l		excellent horse.
l27l	[Bourbon]	It is the prince of palfreys. His neigh is like the
l28l		bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces
l29l		homage.
l30l	Orleans	No more, cousin.
l31l	[Bourbon]	Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot from
l32l		the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb vary
l33l		deserved praise on my palfrey. It is a theme as fluent
l34l		as the sea. Turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and
l35l		my horse is argument for them all. ’Tis a subject for a
l36l		sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign’s sovereign
l37l		to ride on, and for the world, familiar to us and
l38l		unknown, to lay apart their particular functions, and
l39l		wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and
l40l		began thus: “Wonder of nature!—”
l41l	Orleans	I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.
l42l	[Bourbon]	Then did they imitate that which I composed
l43l		to my courser, for my horse is my mistress.
l44l	Orleans	Your mistress bears well.
l45l	[Bourbon]	Me well, which is the prescribed praise and
l46l		perfection of a good and particular mistress.
l47l	Constable	Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress
l48l		shrewdly shook your back.
l49l	[Bourbon]	So perhaps did yours.
l50l	Constable	Mine was not bridled.
l51l	[Bourbon]	O then belike she was old and gentle, and you
l52l		rode like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and
l53l		in your strait strossers.
l54l	Constable	You have good judgement in horsemanship.
l55l	[Bourbon]	Be warned by me then: they that ride so, and
l56l		ride not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have
l57l		my horse to my mistress.
l58l	Constable	I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
l59l	[Bourbon]	I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his
l60l		own hair.
l61l	Constable	I could make as true a boast as that, if I had
l62l		a sow to my mistress.
l63l	[Bourbon]	“Le chien est retourne à son propre vomissement,
l64l		et la truie lavee au bourbier.” Thou makest use of
l65l		anything.
l66l	Constable	Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or
l67l		any such proverb so little kin to the purpose.
l68l	Rambures	My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in
l69l		your tent tonight, are those stars or suns upon it?
l70l	Constable	Stars, my lord.
l71l	[Bourbon]	Some of them will fall tomorrow, I hope.
l72l	Constable	And yet my sky shall not want.
l73l	[Bourbon]	That may be, for you bear a many superfluously,
l74l		and ’twere more honour some were away.
l75l	Constable	Even as your horse bears your praises, who
l76l		would trot as well were some of your brags dismounted.
l77l	[Bourbon]	Would I were able to load him with his desert!
l78l		Will it never be day? I will trot tomorrow a mile, and
l79l		my way shall be paved with English faces.
l80l	Constable	I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out
l81l		of my way. But I would it were morning, for I would
l82l		fain be about the ears of the English.
l83l	Rambures	Who will go to hazard with me for twenty
l84l		prisoners?
l85l	Constable	You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you
l86l		have them.
l87l	[Bourbon]	’Tis midnight. I’ll go arm myself.
		(Exit)
l88l	Orleans	 The Duke of Bourbon longs for morning.
l89l	Rambures	He longs to eat the English.
l90l	Constable	I think he will eat all he kills.
l91l	Orleans	By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant
l92l		prince.
l93l	Constable	Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the
l94l		oath.
l95l	Orleans	He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
l96l	Constable	Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.
l97l	Orleans	He never did harm that I heard of.
l98l	Constable	Nor will do none tomorrow. He will keep that
l99l		good name still.
l100l	Orleans	I know him to be valiant.
l101l	Constable	I was told that by one that knows him better
l102l		than you.
l103l	Orleans	What’s he?
l104l	Constable	Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he
l105l		cared not who knew it.
l106l	Orleans	He needs not# it is no hidden virtue in him.
l107l	Constable	By my faith, sir, but it is. Never anybody saw
l108l		it but his lackey. ’Tis a hooded valour, and when it
l109l		appears it will bate.
l110l	Orleans	“Ill will never said well.”
l111l	Constable	I will cap that proverb with “There is flattery
l112l		in friendship.”
l113l	Orleans	And I will take up that with “Give the devil his
l114l		due.”
l115l	Constable	Well placed! There stands your friend for the
l116l		devil. Have at the very eye of that proverb with “A pox
l117l		of the devil!”
l118l	Orleans	You are the better at proverbs by how much “a
l119l		fool’s bolt is soon shot”.
l120l	Constable	You have shot over.
l121l	Orleans	’Tis not the first time you were overshot.
		(Enter a Messenger)
l122l	Messenger	 My Lord High Constable, the English lie within
l123l		fifteen hundred paces of your tents.
l124l	Constable	Who hath measured the ground?
l125l	Messenger	The Lord Grandpre.
l126l	Constable	A valiant and most expert gentleman.
		(Exit Messenger)
l127l		Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England. He
l128l		longs not for the dawning as we do.
l129l	Orleans	What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King
l130l		of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so
l131l		far out of his knowledge.
l132l	Constable	If the English had any apprehension, they
l133l		would run away.
l134l	Orleans	That they lack—for if their heads had any
l135l		intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy
l136l		headpieces.
l137l	Rambures	That island of England breeds very valiant
l138l		creatures. Their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
l139l	Orleans	Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth
l140l		of a Russian bear, and have their heads crushed like
l141l		rotten apples. You may as well say, “That’s a valiant
l142l		flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.”
l143l	Constable	Just, just. And the men do sympathize with
l144l		the mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving
l145l		their wits with their wives. And then, give them great
l146l		meals of beef, and iron and steel, they will eat like
l147l		wolves and fight like devils.
l148l	Orleans	Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
l149l	Constable	Then shall we find tomorrow they have only
l150l		stomachs to eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to
l151l		arm. Come, shall we about it?
l152l	Orleans	 It is now two o’clock. But let me see—by ten
l153l		We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
		(Exeunt)