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  • Title: Henry IV, Part 2 (Quarto 1, 1600)
  • Editor: Rosemary Gaby

    • Copyright Rosemary Gaby. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Rosemary Gaby
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Henry IV, Part 2 (Quarto 1, 1600)

    Enter th'Archbishop, Thomas Mowbray (Earle Marshall) the
    Lord Hastings, Fauconbridge, and Bardolfe.
    Bishop Thus haue you heard our cause, and knowne our(meanes,
    And my most noble friends, I pray you al
    Speake plainely your opinions of our hopes,
    And first Lord Marshall, what say you to it?
    505Marsh. I well allow the occasion of our armes,
    But gladly would be better satisfied,
    How in our meanes we should aduance ourselues,
    To looke with forehead, bold, and big enough,
    Vpon the power and puissance of the King.
    510Hast. Our present musters grow vpon the file,
    To fiue and twenty thousand men of choise,
    And our supplies liue largely in the hope
    Of great Northumberland, whose bosome burnes
    With an incensed fire of iniuries.
    515Bard. The question then Lord Hastings standeth thus,
    Whether our present fiue and twentie thousand,
    May hold vp head without Northumberland.
    Hast. With him we may.
    Bard. Yea mary, theres the point,
    520But if without him we be thought too feeble,
    My iudgement is we should not step too far.
    Bish. Tis very true lord Bardolfe, for indeede
    It was yong Hot-spurs cause at Shrewsbury.
    Bard. It was my Lord, who lined himselfe with hope,
    Eating the ayre, and promise of supplie,
    530Flattring himselfe in proiect of a power,
    Much smaller then the smallest of his thoughts,
    And so with great imagination,
    Proper to mad-men, led his powers to death,
    And winking, leapt into destruction.
    535Hast. But by your leaue it neuer yet did hurt,
    To
    Henry the fourth.
    To lay downe likelihoods and formes of hope.
    Bard. We fortifie in paper, and in figures,
    Vsing the names of men in steed of men,
    Like on that drawes the model of an house,
    560Beyond his power to build it, who (halfe thorough)
    Giues o're, and leaues his part-created cost,
    A naked subiect to the weeping clowdes,
    And waste for churlish winters tyrannie.
    Hast. Grant that our hopes (yet likely of faire birth)
    565Should be stil-borne, and that we now possest
    The vtmost man of expectation,
    I thinke we are so, body strong enough,
    Euen as we are to equal with the King.
    Bard. What, is the King but fiue and twenty thousand?
    570Hast. To vs no more, nay not so much, Lord Bardolfe,
    For his diuisions, as the times do brawle,
    And in three heads, one power against the French,
    And one against Glendower perforce a third
    Must take vp vs, so is the vnfirme King
    575In three diuided, and his coffers sound
    With hollow pouertie and emptinesse.
    Bish. That he should draw his seuerall strengths togither,
    And come against vs in full puissance,
    Need not to be dreaded.
    580Hast. If he should do so, French and Welch he leaues his
    back vnarmde, they baying him at the heeles, neuer feare that.
    Bar. Who is it like should leade his forces hither?
    Hast. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmerland:
    585Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
    But who is substituted against the French
    I haue no certaine notice.
    Bish. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
    Hast. We are Times subiects, and Time bids be gone. ex.
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