L. Bard. The question then. Lord Hastings, standeth thus;15
Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland?
Hast. With him, we may.
L. Bard. Yea, marry, there's the point:[3435]
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgement is, we should not step too far20
Till we had his assistance by the hand;[3436]
For in a theme so bloody-faced as this[3436]
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise[3436]
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.[3436][3437]
Arch. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed25
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply,[3438]
Flattering himself in project of a power[3439]
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.
Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.35
L. Bard. Yes, if this present quality of war,[3440][3441]
Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot,[3440][3441]
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring[3440][3441]
We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,[3440]
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair[3440]40
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,[3440]
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;[3440]
And when we see the figure of the house,[3440]
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;[3440]
Which if we find outweighs ability,[3440]45
What do we then but draw anew the model;[3440]
In fewer offices, or at least desist[3440][3442]
To build at all? Much more, in this great work,[3440]
Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down[3440]
And set another up, should we survey[3440]50
The plot of situation and the model,[3440][3443]
Consent upon a sure foundation,[3440][3444]
Question surveyors, know our own estate,[3440]
How able such a work to undergo,[3440][3445]
To weigh against his opposite; or else[3440][3446]55
We fortify in paper and in figures,[3447]
Using the names of men instead of men:
Like one that draws the model of a house[3448]
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,[3449]
Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost[3450]60
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
Hast. Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd[3451]
The utmost man of expectation,65
I think we are a body strong enough,[3452]
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
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,70
Are in three heads: one power against the French,[3453]
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.75