My ransome, is this frail and worthless trunk; Yet, God before,3 tell him we will come on, Though France himself, and such another neighbour, If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd, Mont. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness. [Exit MONT. 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. 3 [Exeunt. God before,] This was an expression in that age for God being my guide, or, when used to another, God be thy guide. So, in An old Dialogue between a Herdsman and a Maiden going on a Pilgrimage to Walsingham, the herdsman takes his leave in these words: "Now, go thy ways, and God before." To prevent was used in the same sense. Johnson. 4 There's for thy labour, Montjoy. Go, bid thy master well advise himself: We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolour:] From Holinshed: "My desire is, that none of you be so unadvised, as to be the occasion that I in my defence shall colour and make red your tawny ground with the effusion of christian bloud. When he [Henry] had thus answered the herauld, he gave him a greate rewarde, and licensed him to depart." Malone: It appears from many ancient books that it was always customary to reward a herald, whether he brought defiance or congratulation. So, in the ancient metrical history of The Battle of Floddon: "Then gave he to the herald's hand, "Besides, with it, a rich reward; "Who hasten'd to his native land "To see how with his king it far'd." Steevens. SCENE VII.5 The French Camp, near Agincourt. Enter the Constable of France, the Lord RAMBURES, the Duke of ORLEANS, 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 pasterns. Ca, 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; 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 pa 7 5 Scene VII.] This scene is shorter, and I think better, in the first editions of 1600 and 1608. But as the enlargements ap pear to be the author's own, I would not omit them. Pope. 6 He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs;] Alluding to the bounding of tennis-balls, which were stuffed with hair, as appears from Much Ado about Nothing: "And the old ornament of his cheek hath already stuff''d tennis-balls." 7 Warburton. he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him,] Thus Cleopatra, speaking of herself: "I am air and fire; my other elements "I give to baser life." Steevens. So, in our author's 44th Sonnet: "so much of earth and water wrought, "I must attend time's leisure with my moan." Again, in Twelfth Night: "Do not our lives consist of the four elements? Malone. tient 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,9 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. 8 and all other jades you may call-beasts.] It is plain that jades and beasts should change places, it being the first word and not the last, which is the term of reproach; as afterwards it is said: "I had as lief have my mistress a ja le." Warburton. I do not think there is any ground for the transposition proposed by Dr. Warburton, who would make jades and beasts change places. Words under the hand of either a transcriber or compositor, never thus leap out of their places. The Dauphin evidently means, that no other horse has so good a title as his, to the appellation peculiarly appropriated to that fine and useful animal. The general term for quadrupeds may suffice for all other horses. Malone. 9 - Wonder of nature,] Here, I suppose, some foolish poem of our author's time is ridiculed; which indeed partly appears from the answer. Warburton. In The First Part of King Henry VI, Act V, sc. iv, Shakspeare himself uses the phrase which he here seems to ridicule : "Be not offended, nature's miracle!" Malone. The phrase is only reprehensible through its misapplication. It is surely proper when applied to a woman, but ridiculous indeed when addressed to a horse. Steevene. Con. Ma foy! the other day, methought, 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 Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off, and in strait trossers.1 your 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. 1 like a Kerne of Ireland your French hose off, and in your strait trossers.] This word very frequently occurs in the old dramatick writers. A man in The Coxcomb of Beaumont and Fletcher, speaking to an Irish servant, says, I'll have thee flead, and trossers made of thy skin, to tumble in." Trossers appear to have been tight breeches.-The Kernes of Ireland anciently rode without breeches, and therefore strait trossers, I believe, means only in their naked skin, which sits close to them. The word is still preserved, but now written-trowsers. Thus, says Randle Holme, in his Academy of Arts and Blazon, B. III, ch. iii: "The Spanish breeches are those that are stret and close to the thigh, and are buttoned up the sides from the knee with about ten or twelve buttons: anciently called TROWSES." Steevens. "Trowses," says the explanatory Index to Cox's History of Ireland, "are breeches and stockings made to sit as close to the body as can be." But the poet seems, by the waggish context, to have a further meaning. Tollet. The following passage in Heywood's Challenge for Beauty, 1636, proves that the ancient Irish trousers were something more than mere buff: "Manhurst. No, for my money give me your substantial English hose, round, and somewhat full afore. "Maid. Now they are, methinks, a little too great. "Manh. The more the discretion of the landlord that builds them, he makes room enough for his tenant to stand upright in them; he may walk in and out at ease without stooping: but of all the rest I am clean out of love with your Irish trowses; they are for all the world like a jealous wife, always close at a man's tayle." The speaker is here circumstantially describing the fashions of different countries. So again, in Bulwer's Pedigree of the English Gallant, 1653: "Bombasted and paned hose were, since I remember, in fashion; but now our hose are made so close to our breeches, that like Irish trowses, they too manifestly discover the dimension of every part." In Sir John Oldcastle, the word is spelt strouces. Collins. Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade. Dau. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears her own hair. Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress. Dau. Le chien est retournè 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 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 English prisoners? 3 Con. You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them. 2 - the armour are those stars, &c.] This circumstance of military finery is alluded to by Sidney, in his Astrophel and Stella: "But if I by a happy window passe, Steevens. 3 Who will go to hazard with me for twenty English prisoners?] Só, in the old anonymous Henry V: "Come and you see what me tro at the king's drummer and fife." "Faith, me will tro at the earl of Northumberland; and now I will tro at the king himself," &c. This incident, however, might have been furnished by the Chronicle. Steevens. See p. 306, n. 1. Malone. |