1    Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!

2    You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.

3    It is the best horse of Europe.

4    Will it never be morning?

5    My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you
6    talk of horse and armour?

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

8    What a long night is this! I will not change my
9    horse with any that treads but on four pasterns.
10   Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his
11   entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus,
12   chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I
13   soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth
14   sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his
15   hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

16   He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

17   And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for
18   Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull
19   elements of earth and water never appear in him, but
20   only in Patient stillness while his rider mounts
21   him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you
22   may call beasts.

23   Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

24   It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
25   bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.

26   No more, cousin.

27   Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the
28   rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary
29   deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as
30   fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent
31   tongues, and my horse is argument for them all:
32   'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for
33   a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the
34   world, familiar to us and unknown to lay apart
35   their particular functions and wonder at him. I
36   once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus:
37   'Wonder of nature,'--

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

39   Then did they imitate that which I composed to my
40   courser, for my horse is my mistress.

41   Your mistress bears well.

42   Me well; which is the prescript praise and
43   perfection of a good and particular mistress.

44   Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly
45   shook your back.

46   So perhaps did yours.

47   Mine was not bridled.

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

51   You have good judgment in horsemanship.

52   Be warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride
53   not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have
54   my horse to my mistress.

55   I had as lief have my mistress a jade.

56   I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.

57   I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow
58   to my mistress.

59   'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et
60   la truie lavee au bourbier;' thou makest use of any thing.

61   Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any
62   such proverb so little kin to the purpose.

63   My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
64   to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?

65   Stars, my lord.

66   Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.

67   And yet my sky shall not want.

68   That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and
69   'twere more honour some were away.

70   Even as your horse bears your praises; who would
71   trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.

72   Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will
73   it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and
74   my way shall be paved with English faces.

75   I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of
76   my way: but I would it were morning; for I would
77   fain be about the ears of the English.

78   Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?

79   You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.

80   'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.

81   The Dauphin longs for morning.

82   He longs to eat the English.

83   I think he will eat all he kills.

84   By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.

85   Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.

86   He is simply the most active gentleman of France.

87   Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.

88   He never did harm, that I heard of.

89   Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still.

90   I know him to be valiant.

91   I was told that by one that knows him better than
92   you.

93   What's he?

94   Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared
95   not who knew it

96   He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.

97   By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it
98   but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and when it
99   appears, it will bate.

100  Ill will never said well.

101  I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in friendship.'

102  And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'

103  Well placed: there stands your friend for the
104  devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A
105  pox of the devil.'

106  You are the better at proverbs, by how much 'A
107  fool's bolt is soon shot.'

108  You have shot over.

109  'Tis not the first time you were overshot.

110  My lord high constable, the English lie within
111  fifteen hundred paces of your tents.

112  Who hath measured the ground?

113  The Lord Grandpre.

114  A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were
115  day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for
116  the dawning as we do.

117  What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of
118  England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so
119  far out of his knowledge!

120  If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.

121  That they lack; for if their heads had any
122  intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy
123  head-pieces.

124  That island of England breeds very valiant
125  creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.

126  Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a
127  Russian bear and have their heads crushed like
128  rotten apples! You may as well say, that's a
129  valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

130  Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the
131  mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving
132  their wits with their wives: and then give them
133  great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will
134  eat like wolves and fight like devils.

135  Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.

136  Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs
137  to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm:
138  come, shall we about it?

139  It is now two o'clock: but, let me see, by ten
140  We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.