Henry V, William Shakespeare [romantic novels in english .txt] 📗

we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance: and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my king and master; so much my office. King Henry What is thy name? I know thy quality. Montjoy Montjoy. King Henry

Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,
And tell thy king I do not seek him now;
But could be willing to march on to Calais
Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth,
Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
My numbers lessened, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French;
Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus! This your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
My army but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself and such another neighbour
Stand in our way. There’s for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go, bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder’d,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle, as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:
So tell your master.

Montjoy I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness. Exit. Gloucester I hope they will not come upon us now. King Henry

We are in God’s hands, 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.

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. Ça, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; 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. 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 strait 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 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. Dauphin Some of them will fall tomorrow, I