Henry V – Act 4 Scene 2

ORLEANS

The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!

The dawn glints on our armour; let’s go lords!

DAUPHIN

Montez à cheval! My horse! Varlet! Laquais! Ha!

Mount your horses! My horse! Servant, lackey! Here!

ORLEANS

O brave spirit!

Such bravery!

DAUPHIN

Via! Les eaux et la terre.

Let’s go, through water and earth.

ORLEANS

Rien puis? L'air et la feu.

And nothing more? Through air and fire, perhaps?

DAUPHIN

Ciel, cousin Orleans.

The sky’s the limit, cousin Orleans.

[ENTER CONSTABLE]

Now, my lord constable!

Now then, lord constable!

CONSTABLE

Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh!

Hear that – our eager horses neigh for battle!

DAUPHIN

Mount them, and make incision in their hides,

Mount them, and then make cuts within the hides

That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,

So that their blood will spill in English eyes

And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!

And douse their flames with our superior courage!

RAMBURES

What, will you have them weep our horses' blood?

Do you desire their tears be horses’ blood?

How shall we, then, behold their natural tears?

How will we recognise their natural tears, then?

MESSENGER

The English are embattled, you French peers.

The English have drawn up their battle lines, sirs.

CONSTABLE

To horse, you gallant princes! Straight to horse!

Get on your horses now, you gallant princes!

Do but behold yon poor and starved band,

Look over there and see that ragtag army;

And your fair show shall suck away their souls,

Your elegance will suck the life out of them

Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.

And make them but the empty shells of men.

There is not work enough for all our hands;

With all these hands, there’s not enough to do;

Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins

There’s insufficient blood in their sick veins

To give each naked curtle-axe a stain,

To cast a stain on all our battle axes

That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,

That all our gallant Frenchmen wield today,

And sheathe for lack of sport: let us but blow on them,

But put away for lack of action. Let’s blow

The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.

On them, our breath will knock them over.

'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,

It is a certainty, beyond all doubt,

That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,

That all the peasant folk who hang about

Who in unnecessary action swarm

Unnecessarily to watch the action

About our squares of battle, were enow

Within the field of battle are enough

To purge this field of such a hilding foe,

To win the fight against such wretched foe,

Though we upon this mountain's basis by

Even if we all stood upon this mountain

Took stand for idle speculation:

And watched the battle idly from afar.

But that our honours must not. What's to say?

But that would not be honourable. So what, then?

A very little little let us do.

Let’s do the very least that we can do.

And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound

And we will win. So let the trumpets sound

The tucket sonance and the note to mount;

A flourish to announce it’s time to mount;

For our approach shall so much dare the field

The foe will be so fearful of our splendour,

That England shall couch down in fear and yield.

The English all will cower and surrender.

GRANDPRE

Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?

What are you waiting for, my lords of France?

Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,

Those island men are carcases, all bony,

Ill-favouredly become the morning field:

And make the morning field look desperate.

Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,

Their shabby flags are hung up dreadfully,

And our air shakes them passing scornfully:

And French air blows on them as if to mock them.

Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggared host

And Mars – the God of War – seems broke amongst them

And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps:

And peers through his helmet’s rusty visor.

The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,

The skinny horsemen look like candlesticks

With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades

With torch handles for weapons; and their horses

Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,

Lower their heads, their bodies droop, exhausted,

The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes

And gunk seeps from their pallid eyes like ropes,

And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit

And in their pale mouths, the horse’s bit

Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless;

Is clogged with grass, the horse too tired to chew it;

And their executors, the knavish crows,

And wily crows, who’ll eat them as they die,

Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.

Fly overhead, impatient for their deaths.

Description cannot suit itself in words

There are no words to use that can describe

To demonstrate the life of such a battle

The life that is displayed within a battle

In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

When one half of the battle seems so lifeless.

CONSTABLE

They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.

They’ve said their prayers, and they await their death.

DAUPHIN

Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits

Shall we send them a meal and give them new clothes,

And give their fasting horses provender,

And give their starving horses food to eat,

And after fight with them?

Then fight them after that?

CONSTABLE

I stay but for my guard: on, to the field!

I’ll wait just for my guard: the battlefield!

I will the banner from a trumpet take,

I’ll snatch a banner flag from off a trumpet,

And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!

To hurry us along. Come on, let’s fly!

The sun is high, and we outwear the day.

The sun is up, and time is slipping by.