Page 1659 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.

DAUPHIN
O Dieu vivant! shall a few sprays of us, [5]
The emptying of our fathers’ luxury,
Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,

And overlook their grafters?

BRITAINE
Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards! [10]
Mort Dieu! ma vie! if they march along
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom

To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.

CONSTABLE
Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle? [15]
Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,

Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water
A drench for sur-rein’d jades, their barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat? [20]

And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
Let us not hang like roping icicles
Upon our houses’ thatch, whiles a more frosty people
Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields! − [25]

Poor we [may] call them in their native lords.

DAUPHIN
By faith and honour,
Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out, and they will give

Their bodies to the lust of English youth,
To new-store France with bastard warriors.

BRITAINE