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The French Camp. | |
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Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and Others. | |
| Orl. The sun doth gild our armour: up, my lords! | |
| Dau. Montez à cheval! My horse! varlet! lacquais! ha! | |
| Orl. O brave spirit! | 5 |
| Dau. Via! les eaux et la terre! | |
| Orl. Rien puis? l’air et le feu. | |
| Dau. Ciel! cousin Orleans. | |
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Enter CONSTABLE. | |
| Now, my lord constable! | 10 |
| Con. Hark how our steeds for present service neigh! | |
| Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides, | |
| That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, | |
| And dout them with superfluous courage: ha! | |
| Ram. What! will you have them weep our horses’ blood? | 15 |
| How shall we then behold their natural tears? | |
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Enter a Messenger. | |
| Mess. The English are embattail’d, you French peers. | |
| Con. To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse! | |
| Do but behold yon poor and starved band, | 20 |
| And your fair show shall suck away their souls, | |
| Leaving them but the shales and husks of men. | |
| There is not work enough for all our hands; | |
| Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins | |
| To give each naked curtal-axe a stain, | 25 |
| That our French gallants shall to-day draw out, | |
| And sheathe for lack of sport: let us but blow on them, | |
| The vapour of our valour will o’erturn them. | |
| ’Tis positive ’gainst all exceptions, lords, | |
| That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants, | 30 |
| Who in unnecessary action swarm | |
| About our squares of battle, were enow | |
| To purge this field of such a hilding foe, | |
| Though we upon this mountain’s basis by | |
| Took stand for idle speculation: | 35 |
| But that our honours must not. What’s to say? | |
| A very little little let us do, | |
| And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound | |
| The tucket sonance and the note to mount: | |
| For our approach shall so much dare the field, | 40 |
| That England shall couch down in fear and yield. | |
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Enter GRANDPRÉ. | |
| Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? | |
| Yon island carrions desperate of their bones, | |
| Ill-favour’dly become the morning field: | 45 |
| Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose, | |
| And our air shakes them passing scornfully: | |
| Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar’d host, | |
| And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps: | |
| The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, | 50 |
| With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades | |
| Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips, | |
| The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes, | |
| And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit | |
| Lies foul with chew’d grass, still and motionless; | 55 |
| And their executors, the knavish crows, | |
| Fly o’er them, all impatient for their hour. | |
| Description cannot suit itself in words | |
| To demonstrate the life of such a battle | |
| In life so lifeless as it shows itself. | 60 |
| Con. They have said their prayers, and they stay for death. | |
| Dau. Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits, | |
| And give their fasting horses provender, | |
| And after fight with them? | |
| Con. I stay but for my guard: on, to the field! | 65 |
| I will the banner from a trumpet take, | |
| And use it for my haste. Come, come, away! | |
| The sun is high, and we outwear the day. [Exeunt. | |
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