The French Camp. | |
| |
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! | 4 |
| Orl. O brave spirit! | |
| Dau. Via! les eaux et la terre! | |
| Orl. Rien puis? l’air et le feu. | |
| Dau. Ciel! cousin Orleans. | 8 |
| |
Enter CONSTABLE. | |
| Now, my lord constable! | |
| Con. Hark how our steeds for present service neigh! | |
| Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides, | 12 |
| 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? | |
| How shall we then behold their natural tears? | 16 |
| |
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 | 24 |
| To give each naked curtal-axe a stain, | |
| 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. | 28 |
| ’Tis positive ’gainst all exceptions, lords, | |
| That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants, | |
| Who in unnecessary action swarm | |
| About our squares of battle, were enow | 32 |
| To purge this field of such a hilding foe, | |
| Though we upon this mountain’s basis by | |
| Took stand for idle speculation: | |
| But that our honours must not. What’s to say? | 36 |
| 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. | |
| |
Enter GRANDPRÉ. | |
| Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? | |
| Yon island carrions desperate of their bones, | 44 |
| Ill-favour’dly become the morning field: | |
| Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose, | |
| And our air shakes them passing scornfully: | |
| Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar’d host, | 48 |
| And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps: | |
| The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, | |
| With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades | |
| Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips, | 52 |
| 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; | |
| And their executors, the knavish crows, | 56 |
| 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? | 64 |
| Con. I stay but for my guard: on, to the field! | |
| 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. | 68 |
