Henry V: Act 3, Scene 7 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 3, Scene 7 of Henry V from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orléans, Dauphin, with others. CONSTABLE Tut, I have the best armor of the world. Would it were day! ORLÉANS You have an excellent armor, but let my horse have his due. CONSTABLE It is the best horse of Europe. 5 ORLÉANS Will it never be morning? DAUPHIN My Lord of Orléans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and armor? ORLÉANS You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world. 10 DAUPHIN What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Çà, 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 15 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. ORLÉANS He’s of the color of the nutmeg. DAUPHIN And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for 20 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. 25 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. 30 ORLÉANS No more, cousin.	Over at the French camp, Bourbon brags about his horse (seriously) until the Constable and Orléans say enough already!
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 35 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 40 a sonnet in his praise and began thus: “Wonder of nature—” ORLÉANS I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress. DAUPHIN Then did they imitate that which I composed 45 to my courser, for my horse is my mistress. ORLÉANS Your mistress bears well. DAUPHIN Me well—which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress. CONSTABLE Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress 50 shrewdly shook your back. DAUPHIN So perhaps did yours. CONSTABLE Mine was not bridled. DAUPHIN O, then belike she was old and gentle, and you rode like a kern of Ireland, your French hose 55 off, and in your strait strossers. CONSTABLE You have good judgment in horsemanship. DAUPHIN 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. 60 CONSTABLE I had as lief have my mistress a jade. DAUPHIN I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair. CONSTABLE I could make as true a boast as that if I had a sow to my mistress. 65 DAUPHIN “Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier.” Thou mak’st use of anything. CONSTABLE Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such proverb so little kin to the purpose. 70 RAMBURES My Lord Constable, the armor that I saw in your tent tonight, are those stars or suns upon it? CONSTABLE Stars, my lord. DAUPHIN Some of them will fall tomorrow, I hope. CONSTABLE And yet my sky shall not want. 75 DAUPHIN That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere more honor some were away. CONSTABLE Ev’n as your horse bears your praises— who would trot as well were some of your brags dismounted. 80 DAUPHIN Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I will trot tomorrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces. CONSTABLE I will not say so for fear I should be faced out of my way. But I would it were morning, for I 85 would fain be about the ears of the English. RAMBURES Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners? CONSTABLE You must first go yourself to hazard ere you have them. 90	Bourbon goes on and on about the magnificence of his horse and Orléans points out that Bourbon talks about it like it's his girlfriend or something. Bourbon confesses that he once wrote a sonnet to his beloved steed. After some discussion among the men about the similarities between riding one's horse and "riding" a woman, Bourbon declares that he'd rather have his horse than his mistress. (Eww.)
DAUPHIN ’Tis midnight. I’ll go arm myself. He exits. ORLÉANS The Dauphin longs for morning. RAMBURES He longs to eat the English. CONSTABLE I think he will eat all he kills. ORLÉANS By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant 95 prince. CONSTABLE Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath. ORLÉANS He is simply the most active gentleman of France. 100 CONSTABLE Doing is activity, and he will still be doing. ORLÉANS He never did harm, that I heard of. CONSTABLE Nor will do none tomorrow. He will keep that good name still. ORLÉANS I know him to be valiant. 105 CONSTABLE I was told that by one that knows him better than you. ORLÉANS What’s he? CONSTABLE Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he cared not who knew it. 110 ORLÉANS He needs not. It is no hidden virtue in him. CONSTABLE By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but his lackey. ’Tis a hooded valor, and when it appears, it will bate. ORLÉANS Ill will never said well. 115 CONSTABLE I will cap that proverb with “There is flattery in friendship.” ORLÉANS And I will take up that with “Give the devil his due.” CONSTABLE Well placed; there stands your friend for 120 the devil. Have at the very eye of that proverb with “A pox of the devil.” ORLÉANS You are the better at proverbs, by how much “A fool’s bolt is soon shot.” CONSTABLE You have shot over. 125 ORLÉANS ’Tis not the first time you were overshot.	When Bourbon runs off to get ready for battle (even though it's midnight), the Constable and Orléans take the opportunity to talk trash about him.
Enter a Messenger. MESSENGER My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents. CONSTABLE Who hath measured the ground? MESSENGER The Lord Grandpré. 130 CONSTABLE A valiant and most expert gentleman.— Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England! He longs not for the dawning as we do. ORLÉANS What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of England to mope with his fat-brained 135 followers so far out of his knowledge. CONSTABLE If the English had any apprehension, they would run away. ORLÉANS That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armor, they could never wear such 140 heavy headpieces. RAMBURES That island of England breeds very valiant creatures. Their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. ORLÉANS Foolish curs, that run winking into the 145 mouth of a Russian bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples. You may as well say that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion. CONSTABLE Just, just; and the men do sympathize with 150 the mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives. And then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils. ORLÉANS Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of 155 beef. CONSTABLE Then shall we find tomorrow they have only stomachs to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we about it? ORLÉANS It is now two o’clock. But, let me see, by ten 160 We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. They exit.	A messenger arrives with news that the English are only 1500 paces from the French encampment. Orléans and the Constable talk about what an idiot King Henry has turned out to be. The English army has no idea they're about to get pummeled by the French soldiers.