Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under.
For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance:
and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced.
So far my king and master; so much my office. KING HENRY V What is thy name? I know thy quality. MONTJOY Montjoy. KING HENRY V Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back.
And tell thy king I do not seek him now;
But could be willing to march on to Calais Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth, Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much Unto an enemy of craft and vantage, My people are with sickness much enfeebled, My numbers lessened, and those few I have Almost no better than so many French;Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald, I thought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen. 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 neighbour Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd, We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolour: 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. MONTJOY I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.
Exit GLOUCESTER I hope they will not come upon us now. KING HENRY V 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. The French camp, near Agincourt: Enter the Constable of France, the LORD RAMBURES, ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, with others Constable Tut! I have the best armour of the world.
Would it were day! ORLEANS You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due. Constable It is the best horse of Europe. ORLEANS Will it never be morning? DAUPHIN My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour? ORLEANS You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world. DAUPHIN 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, Isoar, 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. ORLEANS He's of the colour of the nutmeg. DAUPHIN 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. Constable Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. DAUPHIN It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage. ORLEANS No more, cousin. DAUPHIN 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.
Ionce writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus:
