SCENE VII. The French camp, near Agincourt: The Life of King Henry the Fifth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry V  | Act 3, Scene 7 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE VII. The French camp, near Agincourt: 

 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. 



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