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 neighbor

Stand in our way. There's for thy labor, Montjoy.

Go bid thy master well advise himself.

If we may pass, we will; if we be hind'red,

We shall your tawny ground with your red blood

Discolor; 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. Thanks to your Highness.

 

[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]

Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleance, Dolphin, with others.

 

CON. Tut, I have the best armor of the world. Would it were day!

ORL. You have an excellent armor; but let my horse have his due.

CON. It is the best horse of Europe.

ORL. Will it never be morning?

DOL. My Lord of Orleance, and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and armor?

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

DOL. 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 color of the nutmeg.

DOL. 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.

DOL. It is the prince of palfreys: his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.

ORL. No more, cousin.

DOL. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserv'd 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.

DOL. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd to my courser, for my horse is my mistress.

ORL. Your mistress bears well.

DOL. Me well, which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.

CON.