William Shakespeare: The Life of King Henry V

ACT FOURTH. 2. SCENE II. The French camp. (continued)

[Enter Grandpre.]

GRANDPRE.
Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favouredly become the morning field.
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps;
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks
With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades
Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips,
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still, and motionless;
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words
To demonstrate the life of such a battle,
In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

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

DAUPHIN.
Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits
And give their fasting horses provender,
And after fight with them?

CONSTABLE.
I stay but for my guard; on to the field!
I will the banner from a trumpet take,
And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!
The sun is high, and we outwear the day.

[Exeunt.]