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