feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounc'd. So far my King and master; so much my office.

139

K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality. Mont. Montjoy.

K. Hen. 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 't is no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
My numbers lessen'd, 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

150

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.

159

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, Mont-
joy.

139. office = special duty, as in 1. 142.

140. quality profession. Henry knew him to be the French herald from his tabard.

159. God before God leading and aiding. Henry was always very devout and God-glorifying. W.

←

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.

Mont. I shall deliver so.

ness.

169

Thanks to your high

[Exit.

Glou. I hope they will not come upon us now.
K. Hen. 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 to-morrow bid them march away.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII. The French camp, near Agincourt.

Enter the CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, the LORD RAMBURES, ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, with 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.

Orl. Will it never be morning?

164. your tawny ground, etc.: taken right out of Holinshed: "and yet I wish not anie of you so unadvised, as to be the occasion that I die your tawnie ground with your red bloud;" and Holinshed took it from the preceding chronicler, Hall. W.

Scene VII. This scene gives us excellently the difference between talking and doing. The French in their talk of their armor and horses are most effective, especially the Dauphin; his only match in the English army is Pistol.

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.

10

Dau. 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.

Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

19

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.

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.

30

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

13. entrails were hairs. Tennis balls were stuffed with hair. le cheval volant = the flying horse. chez les narines de feu = with fire-breathing nostrils. W.

=

21. Perseus son of Danaë by Jupiter. He had winged sandals, and in the literature just preceding S.'s day, his ship was called his flying horse. W.

26. absolute = perfect, unexceptionable. W.

as the sea turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 't is 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,”

41

Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.

Dau. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd 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. Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

Dau. So perhaps did yours.

Con. Mine was not bridled.

50

Dau. O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your straight strossers.

Con. You have good judgement in horsemanship.

Dau. 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.

60

Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade. Dau. I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.

54. kern an Irish foot-soldier. strait strossers trousers. W.

=

tight

62. wears his own hair. One of the very few personal feelings on the part of S. which appear in his plays was a great dislike of the fashion of wearing false hair and dyeing the hair, which was common among women in his day. W.

Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had mistress.

a sow to my

Dau. "Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier: " thou mak'st use of any thing.

Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such proverb so little kin to the purpose. 70 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 't were 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.

82

Con. 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.

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 Dolphin longs for morning.
Ram. He longs to eat the English.

Con. I think he will eat all he kills.

[Exit.

91

66. Le chien est retourné, etc. = the dog is returned to his vomit, etc. W.

93. I kills: a common quip. Cf. Much Ado, I, i, 36, "for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing."