SCENE III. York. The Archbishop's palace. The Second part of King Henry the Fourth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry IV, part 2  | Act 1, Scene 3 

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 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 

 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 

 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: 

 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 

 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 

 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 

 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, 

 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. 

 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. 

 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? 

 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. 



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