disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to reanswer, 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.

K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality. Mont. Montjoy.

K. Hen. 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 lessen'd, 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.

Mont. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.

[Exit MONTJOY. Glo. 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.

The French Camp, near Agincourt.

Enter the Constable of France, the Lord RAMBURES, the Duke of ORLEANS, the Dauphin, and Others.

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

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

Con. It is the best horse of Europe.

Orl. Will it never be morning?

Dau. My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour

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

Dau. What a long night is this!-I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns2. Ça, ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a 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:

postures.

that treads but upon four PASTERNS.] For "pasterns," the folio has

the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the

pipe of Hermes.

Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

Dau. 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.

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

Orl. No more, cousin.

Dau. 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. 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.

Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress.

Orl. Your mistress bears well.

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

Con. Nay, for methought yesterday, your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

Dau. So, perhaps, did yours.

Con. Mine was not bridled.

Dau. O! then, belike, she was old and gentle; and

you rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait trossers3.

Con. You have good judgment in horsemanship.

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

Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade.

Dau. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair1.

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

Dau. Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier: thou makest use of any thing. Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress; or any such proverb, so little kin to the purpose.

Ram. My lord constable, the armour, that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars, or suns, upon it? Con. Stars, my lord.

Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
Con. And yet my sky shall not want.

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

Con. Even as your horse bears your praises: who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted. Dau. Would, I were able to load him with his

3- like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait TROSSERS.] The old copy (as Malone states) reads strossers. The correction was made by Theobald, who observes, that "by strait trossers the poet means femoribus denudatis, for the kerns of Ireland wore no breeches, any more than the Scotch Highlanders.” The explication (Malone adds) is right; but that the kerns of Ireland universally rode without breeches, may be doubted. It is clear from many passages in books of our author's age, that the Irish strait trossers or trousers were not merely figuratire; though in consequence of their being made extremely tight, Shakespeare has here employed the words in an equivocal sense. Trousers, or trossers, were formerly the reverse of what we now understand by the word.

- my mistress wears HIS own hair.] The mistress of the dauphin is his horse, and therefore he properly says, "my mistress wears his own hair ;" but modern editors, (including Malone) not understanding how "his" could apply to a "mistress," altered it to her, without stating that they varied from the old copies.

desert! Will it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces. Con. I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of my way; but I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the ears of the English.

Ram. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?

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

Dau. 'Tis midnight: I'll go arm myself.
Orl. The Dauphin longs for morning.
Ram. He longs to eat the English.

Con. I think he will eat all he kills.

[Exit.

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

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

Orl. He is simply the most active gentleman of France.

Con. Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.
Orl. He never did harm, that I heard of.

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

Orl. I know him to be valiant.

Con. I was told that, by one that knows him better than you.

Orl. What's he?

Con. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said, he Icared not who knew it.

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

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

Orl. Ill will never said well.

5

and when it appears it will BATE.] Respecting the word "bate," see this Vol. p. 306, note 5. The allusion in the words "hooded valour" is to falcons and their hoods.