Henry V
Act III, Scene 7
Agincourt. The French camp.
Costume design for Lord Rambures
Emma Hamilton Smith, Charles Hamilton Smith, circa 1856
- Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orléans,
- Dauphin, with others.
Constable of France
1- Tut, I have the best armor of the world. Would it were day!
Duke of Orléans
2- You have an excellent armor; but let my horse have his due.
Constable of France
3- It is the best horse of Europe.
Duke of Orléans
4- Will it never be morning?
Dauphin
5 - 6- My Lord of Orléans, and my Lord High Constable, you talk of
- horse and armor?
Duke of Orléans
7- You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.
Dauphin
8 - 14- What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with
- any that treads but on four pasterns. Ça, 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.
Duke of Orléans
15- He’s of the color of the nutmeg.
Dauphin
16 - 20- 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 of France
21- Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
Dauphin
22 - 23- It is the prince of palfreys: his neigh is like the bidding
- of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.
Duke of Orléans
24- No more, cousin.
Dauphin
25 - 33- Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of the
- lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserv’d 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”—
Duke of Orléans
34- I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.
Dauphin
35 - 36- Then did they imitate that which I compos’d to my courser,
- for my horse is my mistress.
Duke of Orléans
37- Your mistress bears well.
Dauphin
38 - 39- Me well, which is the prescript praise and perfection of a
- good and particular mistress.
Constable of France
40 - 41- Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook
- your back.
Dauphin
42- So perhaps did yours.
Constable of France
43- Mine was not bridled.
Dauphin
44 - 46- 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.
Constable of France
47- You have good judgment in horsemanship.
Dauphin
48 - 50- 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.
Constable of France
51- I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
Dauphin
52- I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
Constable of France
53 - 54- I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my
- mistress.
Dauphin
55 - 56- “Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie
- lavée au bourbier.” Thou mak’st use of any thing.
Constable of France
57 - 58- Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such
- proverb so little kin to the purpose.
Rambures
59 - 60- My Lord Constable, the armor that I saw in your tent
- tonight, are those stars or suns upon it?
Constable of France
61- Stars, my lord.
Dauphin
62- Some of them will fall tomorrow, I hope.
Constable of France
63- And yet my sky shall not want.
Dauphin
64 - 65- That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere
- more honor some were away.
Constable of France
66 - 67- Ev’n as your horse bears your praises, who would trot as
- well, were some of your brags dismounted.
Dauphin
68 - 70- Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never
- be day? I will trot tomorrow a mile, and my way shall be
- pav’d with English faces.
Coat of arms of Charles I of Albret, Constable of France
Carlodangio
Constable of France
71 - 73- 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.
Rambures
74- Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
Constable of France
75- You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
Dauphin
76- ’Tis midnight, I’ll go arm myself.
- Exit.
Duke of Orléans
77- The Dauphin longs for morning.
Rambures
78- He longs to eat the English.
Constable of France
79- I think he will eat all he kills.
Duke of Orléans
80- By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.
Constable of France
81- Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
Duke of Orléans
82- He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
Constable of France
83- Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.
Duke of Orléans
84- He never did harm, that I heard of.
Constable of France
85 - 86- Nor will do none tomorrow. He will keep that good name
- still.
Duke of Orléans
87- I know him to be valiant.
Constable of France
88- I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
Duke of Orléans
89- What’s he?
Constable of France
90 - 91- Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he car’d not who
- knew it.
Duke of Orléans
92- He needs not, it is no hidden virtue in him.
Constable of France
93 - 95- By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but his
- lackey. ’Tis a hooded valor, and when it appears, it will
- bate.
Duke of Orléans
96- “Ill will never said well.”
Constable of France
97 - 98- I will cap that proverb with “There is flattery in
- friendship.”
Duke of Orléans
99- And I will take up that with “Give the devil his due.”
Constable of France
100 - 101- Well plac’d. There stands your friend for the devil; have at
- the very eye of that proverb with “A pox of the devil.”
Duke of Orléans
102 - 103- You are the better at proverbs, by how much “A fool’s bolt
- is soon shot.”
Constable of France
104- You have shot over.
Duke of Orléans
105- ’Tis not the first time you were overshot.
- Enter French Court Attendant.
French Court Attendant
106 - 107- My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen
- hundred paces of your tents.
Constable of France
108- Who hath measur’d the ground?
French Court Attendant
109- The Lord Grandpré.
Constable of France
110 - 112- A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day!
- Alas, poor Harry of England! He longs not for the dawning as
- we do.
Duke of Orléans
113 - 115- 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!
Constable of France
116- If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
Duke of Orléans
117 - 118- That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual
- armor, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.
Rambures
119 - 120- That island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their
- mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
Duke of Orléans
121 - 124- 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.
Constable of France
125 - 128- 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.
Duke of Orléans
129- Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
Constable of France
130 - 132- Then shall we find tomorrow they have only stomachs to eat
- and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we
- about it?
Duke of Orléans
133 - 134- It is now two a’ clock; but let me see, by ten
- We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
- Exeunt.
Battle of Agincourt
Chroniques d’Enguerrand de Monstrelet, early 15th century