Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter th’ Archbishop of York, Thomas Mowbray (Earl
Marshal), the Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolph. ARCHBISHOP
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? 5 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. 10 | At the Archbishop's palace in York, the rebel leaders (York, Mowbray, Lord Marshall, Hastings, and Lord Bardolph) hold a strategy meeting. Mowbray says he's down with the rebel's cause but he'd feel a whole lot better if they had a decent plan because the king's got an awfully powerful army. |
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 incensèd fire of injuries. 15 | Hastings chimes in that the rebels have got 25,000 good soldiers now but
they need Northumberland's forces if they're going to have a shot. |
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. 20
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 25
Of aids incertain should not be admitted. | Lord Bardolph says they can't count on Northumberland's men as reinforcements. There's just too much on the line for them to base their strategy on mere speculation. |
ARCHBISHOP
’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed
It was young Hotspur’s cause at Shrewsbury. LORD BARDOLPH
It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air and promise of supply, 30
Flatt’ring 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, leapt into destruction. 35 | As an example, York and Lord Bardolph recall what recently happened to Hotspur at the battle at Shrewsbury. Hotspur was counting on his father's (Northumberland's) forces for backup but that didn't pan out (because Northumberland called in sick). Hotspur, like a fool, jumped headlong into battle anyway, leading his troops to their death. The remaining rebels don't want to repeat Hotspur's mistakes. |
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 40
We see th’ 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, 45
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 least desist
To build at all? Much more in this great work, 50
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, 55
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 an house 60
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. | On the other hand, notes Hastings, there's nothing wrong with having a little "hope." (Note: "Esperance" (which means "hope" in French) was Hotspur's motto in Henry IV Part 1. Lord Bardolph disagrees and, in a lengthy speech, warns that the rebels shouldn't be counting their eggs before they hatch. He says that hoping early spring buds will mature into fruit is a bad idea because a frost usually comes along and kills them off. Then Lord Bardolph uses a metaphor comparing the rebels to an architect who carefully plans for and designs a house before he starts building it. (Psst. Bardolph steals this from a biblical parable about a wise builder in Luke 14:28-30.) Lord Bardolph also says that if the rebels can't execute their plot, they need to scrap their plan and then come up with another. Then Lord Bardolph makes a little joke about his building metaphor – before the rebels build their kingdom, first they have to tear down the one that already exists. (That would be the one that belongs to King Henry IV.) |
HASTINGS
Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth, 65
Should be stillborn and that we now possessed
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? 70 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 75
In three divided, and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness. | Hastings wants in on the fun metaphor game and he's not about to be outdone by Bardolph's plagiarized builder metaphor so, he compares the rebels' plan to a pregnancy and says he hopes the baby won't be "stillborn." Still, he thinks the rebels have a "strong enough" body to see this thing through. Plus, says Hastings, the king's forces are pretty weak right now, especially because they're divided into three units: One division is busy fighting with Glendower's Welsh army and a second division is in the middle of a dustup with France. That leaves a paltry third division (just 25,000 men) to deal with the English rebels. Also, the king is broke, war being so expensive to finance and all. |
ARCHBISHOP
That he should draw his several strengths together
And come against us in full puissance
Need not to be dreaded. 80 HASTINGS If he should do so,
He leaves his back unarmed, 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; 85
Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;
But who is substituted against the French
I have no certain notice. ARCHBISHOP Let us on,
And publish the occasion of our arms. 90
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 95
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be.
And being now trimmed in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
That thou provok’st thyself to cast him up. 100
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 lived, would have him die
Are now become enamored on his grave.
Thou, that threw’st dust upon his goodly head
When through proud London he came sighing on
After th’ admirèd heels of Bolingbroke, 110
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? 115 HASTINGS
We are time’s subjects, and time bids begone. They exit. | York notes that it's not likely the king will pull his troops away from fighting the French and the Welsh to gang up on the rebels so things are looking good. Archbishop York gives the green light for going public with their plan and says the commonwealth is "sick" of Henry and it's their own darn fault. He compares the commoners' love for the king to an eating disorder – they couldn't get enough of Henry, eating him up, so to speak, and gorging themselves in the process. York goes on to call the commoners a "common dog" and a "beastly feeder" that throws up its food and then gobbles up its own vomit. (This, by the way, is a reference to the way the commoners once loved King Richard II but soon began to hate him. Now that Richard II is dead and gone, they want him back.) Mowbray and Hastings say it's time to get this show on the road and the rebels set off to gather up their soldiers. |