Page 1013 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

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 [40]
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,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection,
Which if we find outweighs ability, [45]

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,
Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down

And set another up, should we survey [50]
The plot of situation and the model,
Consent upon a sure foundation,
Question surveyors, know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite. Or else] [55]
We fortify in paper and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men,

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 [60]
A naked subject to the weeping clouds

And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.

HASTINGS
Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
Should be still-born, and that we now possessed
The utmost man of expectation, [65]
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?

HASTINGS
To us no more, nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.