Page 1012 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

LORD BARDOLPH

The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus: [15]
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 [20]
[Till we had his assistance by the hand.
For in a theme so bloody-faced as this,

Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids uncertain should not be admitted.]

ARCHBISHOP
’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed [25]
It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH

It was, my lord, who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air and promise of supply,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts, [30]
And so, with great imagination

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
And winking leaped into destruction.

HASTINGS
But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. [35]

LORD BARDOLPH

[Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot,