ACT III. SCENE VII.
The French camp near Agincourt
Enter the CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, the LORD RAMBURES, the DUKE OF ORLEANS,
the DAUPHIN, with others
CONSTABLE. | Tut! I have the best armour of the world.
Would it were day!
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ORLEANS. | You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his
due.
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CONSTABLE. | It is the best horse of Europe.
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ORLEANS. | Will it never be morning?
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DAUPHIN. | My Lord of Orleans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of
horse and armour?
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ORLEANS. | You are as well provided of both as any prince in the
world.
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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.
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ORLEANS. | He's of the colour of the nutmeg.
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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.
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CONSTABLE. | Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent
horse.
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DAUPHIN. | It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.
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ORLEANS. | No more, cousin.
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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'-
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ORLEANS. | I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.
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DAUPHIN. | Then did they imitate that which I compos'd to my courser;
for my horse is my mistress.
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ORLEANS. | Your mistress bears well.
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DAUPHIN. | Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a
good and particular mistress.
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CONSTABLE. | Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly
shook your back.
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DAUPHIN. | So perhaps did yours.
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CONSTABLE. | Mine was not bridled.
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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.
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CONSTABLE. | You have good judgment in horsemanship.
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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.
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CONSTABLE. | I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
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DAUPHIN. | I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
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CONSTABLE. | I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to
my mistress.
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DAUPHIN. | 'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et la
truie lavee au bourbier.' Thou mak'st use of anything.
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CONSTABLE. | Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such
proverb so little kin to the purpose.
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RAMBURES. | My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
to-night- are those stars or suns upon it?
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CONSTABLE. | Stars, my lord.
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DAUPHIN. | Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
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CONSTABLE. | And yet my sky shall not want.
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DAUPHIN. | That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and
'twere more honour some were away.
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CONSTABLE. | Ev'n as your horse bears your praises, who would trot as
well were some of your brags dismounted.
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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.
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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.
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RAMBURES. | Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
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CONSTABLE. | You must first go yourself to hazard ere you have them.
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DAUPHIN. | 'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself
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Exit
ORLEANS. | The Dauphin longs for morning.
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RAMBURES. | He longs to eat the English.
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CONSTABLE. | I think he will eat all he kills.
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ORLEANS. | By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.
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CONSTABLE. | Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
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ORLEANS. | He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
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CONSTABLE. | Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.
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ORLEANS. | He never did harm that I heard of.
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CONSTABLE. | Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name
still.
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ORLEANS. | I know him to be valiant.
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CONSTABLE. | I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
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ORLEANS. | What's he?
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CONSTABLE. | Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car'd not
who knew it.
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ORLEANS. | He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
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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.
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ORLEANS. | Ill-wind never said well.
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CONSTABLE. | I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in
friendship.'
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ORLEANS. | And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'
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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!'
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ORLEANS. | You are the better at proverbs by how much 'A fool's bolt
is soon shot.'
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CONSTABLE. | You have shot over.
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ORLEANS. | 'Tis not the first time you were overshot.
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Enter a MESSENGER
MESSENGER. | My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen
hundred paces of your tents.
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CONSTABLE. | Who hath measur'd the ground?
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MESSENGER. | The Lord Grandpre.
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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.
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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!
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CONSTABLE. | If the English had any apprehension, they would run
away.
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ORLEANS. | That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual
armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.
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RAMBURES. | That island of England breeds very valiant creatures;
their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
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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.
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CONSTABLE. | Just, just! and the men do sympathise 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.
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ORLEANS. | Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
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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?
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ORLEANS. | It is now two o'clock; but let me see- by ten
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen
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Exeunt
Next
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