King Henry IV, Part II
| ACT I SCENE III | York. The Archbishop’s palace. | |
| [ Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH ] | ||
| ARCHBISHOP OF YORK | Thus have you heard our cause and known our means; | |
| And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, | ||
| Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes: | ||
| And first, lord marshal, what say you to it? | ||
| MOWBRAY | I well allow the occasion of our arms; | |
| But gladly would be better satisfied | ||
| How in our means we should advance ourselves | ||
| To look with forehead bold and big enough | ||
| Upon the power and puissance of the king. | ||
| HASTINGS | Our present musters grow upon the file | 10 |
| To five and twenty thousand men of choice; | ||
| And our supplies live largely in the hope | ||
| Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns | ||
| With an incensed fire of injuries. | ||
| LORD BARDOLPH | The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus; | |
| Whether our present five and twenty thousand | ||
| May hold up head without Northumberland? | ||
| HASTINGS | With him, we may. | |
| LORD BARDOLPH | Yea, marry, there’s the point: | |
| But if without him we be thought too feeble, | ||
| My judgment is, we should not step too far | 20 | |
| Till we had his assistance by the hand; | ||
| For in a theme so bloody-faced as this | ||
| Conjecture, expectation, and surmise | ||
| Of aids incertain should not be admitted. | ||
| ARCHBISHOP OF YORK | ‘Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed | |
| It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury. | ||
| LORD BARDOLPH | It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope, | |
| Eating the air on promise of supply, | ||
| Flattering himself in project of a power | ||
| Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts: | 30 | |
| And so, with great imagination | ||
| Proper to madmen, led his powers to death | ||
| And winking leap’d into destruction. | ||
| HASTINGS | But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt | |
| To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. | ||
| LORD BARDOLPH | Yes, if this present quality of war, | |
| Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot | ||
| Lives so in hope as in an early spring | ||
| We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit, | ||
| Hope gives not so much warrant as despair | 40 | |
| That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build, | ||
| We first survey the plot, then draw the model; | ||
| And when we see the figure of the house, | ||
| Then must we rate the cost of the erection; | ||
| Which if we find outweighs ability, | ||
| What do we then but draw anew the model | ||
| In fewer offices, or at last desist | ||
| To build at all? Much more, in this great work, | ||
| Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down | ||
| And set another up, should we survey | 50 | |
| The plot of situation and the model, | ||
| Consent upon a sure foundation, | ||
| Question surveyors, know our own estate, | ||
| How able such a work to undergo, | ||
| To weigh against his opposite; or else | ||
| We fortify in paper and in figures, | ||
| Using the names of men instead of men: | ||
| Like one that draws the model of a house | ||
| Beyond his power to build it; who, half through, | ||
| Gives o’er and leaves his part-created cost | 60 | |
| A naked subject to the weeping clouds | ||
| And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny. | ||
| HASTINGS | Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth, | |
| Should be still-born, and that we now possess’d | ||
| The utmost man of expectation, | ||
| I think we are a body strong enough, | ||
| Even as we are, to equal with the king. | ||
| LORD BARDOLPH | What, is the king but five and twenty thousand? | |
| HASTINGS | To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph. | |
| For his divisions, as the times do brawl, | 70 | |
| Are in three heads: one power against the French, | ||
| And one against Glendower; perforce a third | ||
| Must take up us: so is the unfirm king | ||
| In three divided; and his coffers sound | ||
| With hollow poverty and emptiness. | ||
| ARCHBISHOP OF YORK | That he should draw his several strengths together | |
| And come against us in full puissance, | ||
| Need not be dreaded. | ||
| HASTINGS | If he should do so, | |
| He leaves his back unarm’d, the French and Welsh | ||
| Baying him at the heels: never fear that. | 80 | |
| LORD BARDOLPH | Who is it like should lead his forces hither? | |
| HASTINGS | The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland; | |
| Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth: | ||
| But who is substituted ‘gainst the French, | ||
| I have no certain notice. | ||
| ARCHBISHOP OF YORK | Let us on, | |
| And publish the occasion of our arms. | ||
| The commonwealth is sick of their own choice; | ||
| Their over-greedy love hath surfeited: | ||
| An habitation giddy and unsure | ||
| Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. | 90 | |
| O thou fond many, with what loud applause | ||
| Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, | ||
| Before he was what thou wouldst have him be! | ||
| And being now trimm’d in thine own desires, | ||
| Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him, | ||
| That thou provokest thyself to cast him up. | ||
| So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge | ||
| Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard; | ||
| And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up, | ||
| And howl’st to find it. What trust is in | ||
| these times? | 100 | |
| They that, when Richard lived, would have him die, | ||
| Are now become enamour’d on his grave: | ||
| Thou, that threw’st dust upon his goodly head | ||
| When through proud London he came sighing on | ||
| After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, | ||
| Criest now ‘O earth, yield us that king again, | ||
| And take thou this!’ O thoughts of men accursed! | ||
| Past and to come seems best; things present worst. | ||
| MOWBRAY | Shall we go draw our numbers and set on? | |
| HASTINGS | We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone. | 110 |
| [Exeunt] | ||
Continue to 2 Henry IV, Act 2, Scene 1