(JACQUES _puts on his
coat_.) You say....
HAR. That you must clean my carriage, and have my horses ready to
drive to the fair.
JAC. Your horses! Upon my word, Sir, they are not at all in a
condition to stir. I won't tell you that they are laid up, for the
poor things have got nothing to lie upon, and it would not be telling
the truth. But you make them keep such rigid fasts that they are
nothing but phantoms, ideas, and mere shadows of horses.
HAR. They are much to be pitied. They have nothing to do.
JAC. And because they have nothing to do, must they have nothing to
eat? It would be much better for them, poor things, to work much and
eat to correspond. It breaks my heart to see them so reduced; for, in
short, I love my horses; and when I see them suffer, it seems as if it
were myself. Every day I take the bread out of my own mouth to feed
them; and it is being too hard-hearted, Sir, to have no compassion
upon one's neighbour.
HAR. It won't be very hard work to go to the fair.
JAC. No, Sir. I haven't the heart to drive them; it would go too much
against my conscience to use the whip to them in the state they are
in. How could you expect them to drag a carriage? They have not even
strength enough to drag themselves along.
VAL. Sir, I will ask our neighbour, Picard, to drive them;
particularly as we shall want his help to get the supper ready.
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