Page 1668 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

others.

CONSTABLE
Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!

ORLEANS
You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.

CONSTABLE
It is the best horse of Europa. [5]

ORLEANS
Will it never be morning?

DAUPHIN
My Lord of Orleans, and my Lord high Constable, you talk of horse and
armour?

ORLEANS
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. Ça, ha! He bounds from the earth as if his entrails were
hairs − le cheval volant, the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I

bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk. He trots the [15] air; the earth sings when
he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of
Hermes.

ORLEANS
He’s of the colour of the nutmeg.

DAUPHIN
And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire;
and the dull elements [20] 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.