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Enter the Constable of France, the LORD RAMBURES,
ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, with others -
Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!
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You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.
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It is the best horse of Europe.
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Will it never be morning?
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My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you
talk of horse and armour?
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You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.
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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; 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.
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He's of the colour of the nutmeg.
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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.
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Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
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It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.
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No more, cousin.
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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,'--
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I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.
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Then did they imitate that which I composed to my
courser, for my horse is my mistress.
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Your mistress bears well.
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Me well; which is the prescript praise and
perfection of a good and particular mistress.
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Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly
shook your back.
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So perhaps did yours.
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Mine was not bridled.
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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.
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You have good judgment in horsemanship.
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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.
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I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
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I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
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I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow
to my mistress.
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'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et
la truie lavee au bourbier;' thou makest use of any thing.
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Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any
such proverb so little kin to the purpose.
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My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?
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Stars, my lord.
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Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
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And yet my sky shall not want.
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That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and
'twere more honour some were away.
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Even as your horse bears your praises; who would
trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.
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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.
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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.
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Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
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You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
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'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.
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Exit
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The Dauphin longs for morning.
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He longs to eat the English.
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I think he will eat all he kills.
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By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.
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Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
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He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
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Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.
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He never did harm, that I heard of.
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Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still.
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I know him to be valiant.
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I was told that by one that knows him better than
you.
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What's he?
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Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared
not who knew it
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He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
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By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it
but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and when it
appears, it will bate.
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Ill will never said well.
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I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in friendship.'
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And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'
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Well placed: there stands your friend for the
devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A
pox of the devil.'
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You are the better at proverbs, by how much 'A
fool's bolt is soon shot.'
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You have shot over.
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'Tis not the first time you were overshot.
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Enter a Messenger
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My lord high constable, the English lie within
fifteen hundred paces of your tents.
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Who hath measured the ground?
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The Lord Grandpre.
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A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were
day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for
the dawning as we do.
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What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of
England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so
far out of his knowledge!
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If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
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That they lack; for if their heads had any
intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy
head-pieces.
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That island of England breeds very valiant
creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
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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.
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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.
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Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
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Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs
to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm:
come, shall we about it?
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It is now two o'clock: but, let me see, by ten
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
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Exeunt