#ASonnetADay – 91. “Some glory in their birth, some in their skill…” pic.twitter.com/JySaBh8y2Z
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Thank you Fr. Z, this sonnet refreshingly returns to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
Though, here at Chuck Norris Hall we also enjoy our crenellated battlements, chapel, huge glass windows to survey the realm, and a library filled floor to ceiling with books on falconry.
From Henry V:
ACT IV SCENE VII. The French camp, near Agincourt:
Enter the Constable of France, the LORD RAMBURES, ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, with 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 Europe.
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.
DAUPHIN
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,
chez 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.
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 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.
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.
ORLEANS
No more, cousin.
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
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,’–
ORLEANS
I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.
DAUPHIN
Then did they imitate that which I composed to my
courser, for my horse is my mistress.
ORLEANS
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 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 off, and in
your straight 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.
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.
DAUPHIN
‘Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et
la truie lavee au bourbier;’ thou makest use of any thing.
Constable
Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any
such proverb so little kin to the purpose.
RAMBURES
My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?
Constable
Stars, my lord.
DAUPHIN
Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
Constable
And yet my sky shall not want.
DAUPHIN
That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and
’twere more honour some were away.
Constable
Even as your horse bears your praises; who would
trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.
DAUPHIN
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.
Constable
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.
RAMBURES
Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
Constable
You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
DAUPHIN
‘Tis midnight; I’ll go arm myself.
Exit
CONSTABLE. Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs
to eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we
about it?
ORLEANS. It is now two o’clock; but let me see- by ten
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
End Act III, Scene 7.
Act IV Prologue
Chorus:
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
…
The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger; and their gesture sad
Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin’d band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry ‘Praise and glory on his head!’
For forth he goes and visits all his host;
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,
And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him.
[…]
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
[…]