Henry V
Act IV, Scene 2
The French camp.
Charles, Duke of Orléans
Unknown artist, 1473
- Enter the Dauphin, Orléans, and Rambures.
Duke of Orléans
1- The sun doth gild our armor, up, my lords!
Dauphin
2- Montez à cheval! My horse, varlot lackey! Ha!
Duke of Orléans
3- O brave spirit!
Dauphin
4- Via! Les eaux et terre.
Duke of Orléans
5- Rien puis? L’air et feu?
Dauphin
6 - 7- Cieux! Cousin Orléans.
- Enter Constable.
- Now, my Lord Constable?
Constable of France
8- Hark how our steeds for present service neigh!
Dauphin
9 - 11- Mount them, and make incision in their hides,
- That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,
- And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!
Rambures
12 - 13- What, will you have them weep our horses’ blood?
- How shall we then behold their natural tears?
- Enter French Messenger.
French Messenger
14- The English are embattled, you French peers.
Constable of France
15 - 37- To horse, you gallant princes! Straight to horse!
- Do but behold yond poor and starved band,
- And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
- Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
- There is not work enough for all our hands,
- Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins
- To give each naked curtle-axe a stain,
- That our French gallants shall today draw out,
- And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,
- The vapor of our valor will o’erturn them.
- ’Tis positive against all exceptions, lords,
- That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,
- Who in unnecessary action swarm
- About our squares of battle, were enow
- To purge this field of such a hilding foe;
- Though we upon this mountain’s basis by
- Took stand for idle speculation—
- But that our honors must not. What’s to say?
- A very little little let us do,
- And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound
- The tucket sonance and the note to mount;
- For our approach shall so much dare the field,
- That England shall crouch down in fear, and yield.
- Enter Grandpré.
Grandpré
38 - 55- Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
- Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones,
- Ill-favoredly become the morning field.
- Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
- And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
- Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar’d host,
- And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
- The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
- With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades
- Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,
- The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,
- And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal’d bit
- Lies foul with chaw’d-grass, still and motionless;
- And their executors, the knavish crows,
- Fly o’er them all, impatient for their hour.
- Description cannot suit itself in words
- To demonstrate the life of such a battle,
- In life so lifeless as it shows itself.
Constable of France
56- They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.
Dauphin
57 - 59- Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits,
- And give their fasting horses provender,
- And after fight with them?
Constable of France
60 - 63- I stay but for my guidon; to the field!
- I will the banner from a trumpet take,
- And use it for my haste. Come, come away!
- The sun is high, and we outwear the day.
- Exeunt.