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 betray'd his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my King and master; so much my office. King. What is thy name? I know thy quality. Mont. Montjoy. King. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back, But could be willing to march on to Calais 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, 13 Without impediment; an old use of impeachment, now obsolete. Thus in Holinshed: 'But the passage was now so impeached with stakes in the botome of the foord, that he could not passe." 14 An enemy both cunning in arts of strategy and having the advantage in ground and numbers. 15 "Hath puffed me up with that vanity." Yet, God before,16 tell him we will come on, Go, bid thy master well advise himself: 17 [Gives a purse. If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd, The sum of all our answer is but this: We would not seek a battle, as we are ; Mont. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness. [Exit. Glo. I hope they will not come upon us now. And on to-morrow bid them march away. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. The French Camp, near Agincourt. Enter the Constable of France, the Lord RAMBURES, the Duke of ORLEANS, the Dauphin, and others. Con. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.-Would it were day! Orl. You have an excellent armour ; but let my horse have his due. Con. It is the best horse of Europe. 16 That is, "God being our guide." See page 57, note 37. 17 Advise, again, as before: bethink himself, consider. Page 54, note 27. Orl. Will it never be morning? Dau. My Lord of Orleans, and my Lord High-Constable, you talk of horse and armour, Orl. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world. Dau. 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;1 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. Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg. Dau. 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.3 Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. Dau. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. Orl. No more, cousin. 1 Alluding to the bounding of tennis-balls, which were stuffed with hair. 2 Alluding to the ancient doctrine that men and animals, as well as other things, were all made up of the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, and that the higher natures were rendered so by the preponderance of the two latter in their composition. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2, the heroine says, “I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life." The Poet has divers allusions to the doctrine. 3 It appears from this that jade and horse were sometimes used simply as equivalent terms. On the other hand, beast is here meant to convey a note of contempt, like the Latin jumentum, as of an animal fit only for the cart or packsaddle. Dau. 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, Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress. Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser ; for my horse is my mistress. Orl. Your mistress bears well. Dau. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress. Con. Ma foi, methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back. Dau. So, perhaps, did yours. Dau. I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears her own hair.4 Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress. Dau. Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier5: thou makest use of any thing. 4 Referring to the custom which some ladies had, as, it is said, some still have, of wearing hair not their own. The Dauphin is jibing and flouting the Constable upon the presumed qualities of the lady whom he calls his mistress. See The Merchant, page 142, note 19. 5 It has been remarked that Shakespeare was habitually conversant with his Bible: we have here a strong presumptive proof that he read it, at least occasionally, in French. This passage will be found almost literally in the Geneva Bible, 1588. 2 Peter, ii. 22. Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress; or any such proverb, so little kin to the purpose. Ram. My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it? Con. Stars, my lord. Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. Con. And yet my sky shall not want. Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and 'twere more honour some were away. Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted. Dau. 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. Con. 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. Ram. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners? Con. You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them. Dau. 'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself. Orl. The Dauphin longs for morning. [Exit. Orl. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince. 6 To tread out an oath is to dance it out, probably. 7 Here, as often, still is continually or always. в взрод |