The Second Part Of King Henry The Fourth

1 Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray and Bardolph.
2 ARCHBISHOP.
3 Thus have you heard our cause and known our means,
4 And, my most noble friends, I pray you all
5 Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.
6 And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?
7 MOWBRAY.
8 I well allow the occasion of our arms,
9 But gladly would be better satisfied
10 How in our means we should advance ourselves
11 To look with forehead bold and big enough
12 Upon the power and puissance of the King.
13 HASTINGS.
14 Our present musters grow upon the file
15 To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
16 And our supplies live largely in the hope
17 Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
18 With an incensed fire of injuries.
19 LORD BARDOLPH.
20 The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:
21 Whether our present five and twenty thousand
22 May hold up head without Northumberland.
23 HASTINGS.
24 With him we may.
25 LORD BARDOLPH.
26 Yea, marry, there’s the point:
27 But if without him we be thought too feeble,
28 My judgement is, we should not step too far
29 Till we had his assistance by the hand;
30 For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
31 Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
32 Of aids incertain should not be admitted.
33 ARCHBISHOP.
34 ’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed
35 It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.
36 LORD BARDOLPH.
37 It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
38 Eating the air on promise of supply,
39 Flatt’ring himself in project of a power
40 Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts,
41 And so, with great imagination
42 Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
43 And winking leap’d into destruction.
44 HASTINGS.
45 But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
46 To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
47 LORD BARDOLPH.
48 Yes, if this present quality of war—
49 Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot—
50 Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
51 We see th’ appearing buds; which to prove fruit
52 Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
53 That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
54 We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
55 And when we see the figure of the house,
56 Then we must rate the cost of the erection,
57 Which if we find outweighs ability,
58 What do we then but draw anew the model
59 In fewer offices, or at least desist
60 To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
61 Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
62 And set another up, should we survey
63 The plot of situation and the model,
64 Consent upon a sure foundation,
65 Question surveyors, know our own estate,
66 How able such a work to undergo,
67 To weigh against his opposite; or else
68 We fortify in paper and in figures,
69 Using the names of men instead of men,
70 Like one that draws the model of a house
71 Beyond his power to build it, who, half through,
72 Gives o’er and leaves his part-created cost
73 A naked subject to the weeping clouds
74 And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.
75 HASTINGS.
76 Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
77 Should be still-born, and that we now possess’d
78 The utmost man of expectation,
79 I think we are a body strong enough,
80 Even as we are, to equal with the King.
81 LORD BARDOLPH.
82 What, is the King but five and twenty thousand?
83 HASTINGS.
84 To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;
85 For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
86 Are in three heads: one power against the French,
87 And one against Glendower; perforce a third
88 Must take up us. So is the unfirm king
89 In three divided, and his coffers sound
90 With hollow poverty and emptiness.
91 ARCHBISHOP.
92 That he should draw his several strengths together
93 And come against us in full puissance
94 Need not be dreaded.
95 HASTINGS.
96 If he should do so,
97 He leaves his back unarm’d, the French and Welsh
98 Baying him at the heels: never fear that.
99 LORD BARDOLPH.
100 Who is it like should lead his forces hither?
101 HASTINGS.
102 The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
103 Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;
104 But who is substituted ’gainst the French
105 I have no certain notice.
106 ARCHBISHOP.
107 Let us on,
108 And publish the occasion of our arms.
109 The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
110 Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.
111 An habitation giddy and unsure
112 Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
113 O thou fond many, with what loud applause
114 Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
115 Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
116 And being now trimm’d in thine own desires,
117 Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
118 That thou provok’st thyself to cast him up.
119 So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
120 Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
121 And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
122 And howl’st to find it. What trust is in these times?
123 They that, when Richard lived, would have him die
124 Are now become enamour’d on his grave.
125 Thou that threw’st dust upon his goodly head
126 When through proud London he came sighing on
127 After th’ admired heels of Bolingbroke,
128 Criest now “O earth, yield us that king again,
129 And take thou this!” O thoughts of men accursed!
130 Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.
131 MOWBRAY.
132 Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
133 HASTINGS.
134 We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.
135 [_Exeunt._]