| |
York. A Room in the ARCHBISHOP’S Palace. | |
| |
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, LORD HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH. | |
| Arch. 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: | 5 |
| And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it? | |
| Mowb. 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 | 10 |
| Upon the power and puissance of the king. | |
| Hast. 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 | 15 |
| With an incensed fire of injuries. | |
| L. Bard. The question, then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus: | |
| Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand | |
| May hold up head without Northumberland. | |
| Hast. With him, we may. | 20 |
| L. Bard. Ay, 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-fac’d as this, | 25 |
| Conjecture, expectation, and surmise | |
| Of aids incertain should not be admitted. | |
| Arch. ’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for, indeed | |
| It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury. | |
| L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin’d himself with hope, | 30 |
| Eating the air on promise of supply, | |
| Flattering himself with 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, | 35 |
| And winking leap’d into destruction. | |
| Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt | |
| To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. | |
| L. Bard. Yes, if this present quality of war,— | |
| Indeed the instant action,—a cause on foot, | 40 |
| 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; | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| 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: | 60 |
| 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. | 65 |
| Hast. 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. | 70 |
| L. Bard. What! is the king but five-and-twenty thousand? | |
| Hast. 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 | 75 |
| Must take up us: so is the unfirm king | |
| In three divided, and his coffers sound | |
| With hollow poverty and emptiness. | |
| Arch. That he should draw his several strengths together | |
| And come against us in full puissance, | 80 |
| Need not be dreaded. | |
| Hast. If he should do so, | |
| He leaves his back unarm’d, the French and Welsh | |
| Baying him at the heels: never fear that. | |
| L. Bard. Who is it like should lead his forces hither? | 85 |
| Hast. 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. | |
| Arch. Let us on | 90 |
| And publish the occasion of our arms. | |
| The commonwealth is sick of their own choice; | |
| Their over-greedy love hath surfeited. | |
| A habitation giddy and unsure | |
| Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| That thou provok’st 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? | 105 |
| They that, when Richard liv’d, 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, | 110 |
| Cry’st now, ‘O earth! yield us that king again, | |
| And take thou this!’ O, thoughts of men accurst! | |
| Past and to come seem best; things present worst. | |
| Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers and set on? | |
| Hast. We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone. [Exeunt. | 115 |
| |
