When I
bestride
him I soar, I
am a hawk.
am a hawk.
Shakespeare
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.