William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (281 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

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MONTJOY

I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness. Exit

GLOUCESTER

I hope they will not come upon us now.

KING HARRY

We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.
March to the bridge. It now draws toward night.
Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
And on tomorrow bid them march away.
Exeunt

3.7
Enter the Constable, Lord Rambures, the Dukes of Orléans and
⌈
Bourbon
⌉,
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.

ORLÉANS Will it never be morning?

⌈BOURBON⌉ My lord of Orléans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and armour?

ORLÉANS You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.

⌈BOURBON⌉ What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ah ha! He bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hares-
le cheval volant
, the Pegasus,
qui a 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.

ORLÉANS He’s of the colour of the nutmeg.

⌈BOURBON⌉ 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.

⌈BOURBON⌉ It is the prince of palfreys. His neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.

ORLÉANS No more, cousin.

⌈BOURBON⌉ 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!—’

ORLÉANS I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.

⌈BOURBON⌉ Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser, for my horse is my mistress.

ORLÉANS Your mistress bears well.

⌈BOURBON⌉
Me
well, which is the prescribed praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.

CONSTABLE Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

⌈BOURBON⌉ So perhaps did yours.

CONSTABLE Mine was not bridled.

⌈BOURBON⌉ 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 You have good judgement in horsemanship.

⌈BOURBON⌉ 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.

⌈BOURBON⌉ 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.

⌈BOURBON⌉
‛Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier.
’ Thou makest use of anything.

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 tonight, are those stars or suns upon it?

CONSTABLE Stars, my lord.

⌈BOURBON⌉ Some of them will fall tomorrow, I hope.

CONSTABLE And yet my sky shall not want.

⌈BOURBON⌉ 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.

⌈BOURBON⌉ 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 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.

⌈BOURBON⌉ ’Tis midnight. I’ll go arm myself.
Exit

ORLÉANS The Duke of Bourbon longs for morning.

RAMBURES He longs to eat the English.

CONSTABLE I think he will eat all he kills.

ORLÉANS By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.

CONSTABLE Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.

ORLÉANS He is simply the most active gentleman of France.

CONSTABLE Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.

ORLÉANS He never did harm that I heard of.

CONSTABLE Nor will do none tomorrow. He will keep that good name still.

ORLÉANS I know him to be valiant.

CONSTABLE I was told that by one that knows him better than you.

ORLÉANS What’s he?

CONSTABLE Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he cared not who knew it.

ORLÉANS He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.

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.

ORLÉANS ‘Ill will never said well.’ no

CONSTABLE I will cap that proverb with ‘There is flattery in friendship.’

ORLÉANS 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!’

ORLÉANS You are the better at proverbs by how much ‘a fool’s bolt is soon shot’.

CONSTABLE You have shot over.

ORLÉANS ’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 Grandpré.

CONSTABLE A valiant and most expert gentleman.

⌈
Exit Messenger
⌉

Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England. He
longs not for the dawning as we do.

ORLÉANS 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.

ORLÉANS That they lack—for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy headpieces.

RAMBURES That island of England breeds very valiant creatures. Their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.

ORLÉANS 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.

ORLÉANS Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.

CONSTABLE 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?

ORLÉANS

It is now two o’clock. But let me see—by ten
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.

Exeunt

4.0
Enter Chorus

CHORUS

Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch.
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umbered face.
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and overlusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice,
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night,
Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger; and their gesture sad,
Investing lank lean cheeks and war-worn coats,
Presented them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruined band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry, ‘Praise and glory on his head!’
For forth he goes and visits all his host,
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile
And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watchèd night,
But freshly looks and overbears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty,
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.
A largess universal, like the sun,
His liberal eye doth give to everyone,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
And so our scene must to the battle fly,
Where O for pity, we shall much disgrace,
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
Minding true things by what their mock’ries be. Exit

4.1
Enter King Harry and the Duke of Gloucester, then the Duke of
⌈
Clarence
⌉

KING HARRY

Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be.
Good morrow, brother Clarence. God Almighty!
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out—
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
Besides, they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus may we gather honey from the weed
And make a moral of the devil himself.

Enter Sir Thomas Erpingham

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham.
A good soft pillow for that good white head
Were better than a churlish turf of France.

ERPINGHAM

Not so, my liege. This lodging likes me better,
Since I may say, ‘Now lie I like a king.’

KING HARRY

’Tis good for men to love their present pains
Upon example. So the spirit is eased,
And when the mind is quickened, out of doubt
The organs, though defunct and dead before,
Break up their drowsy grave and newly move
With casted slough and fresh legerity.
Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas.