King Henry IV, Part 2 | Page 8

cannot rid
my hands of him.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry:

I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the
Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

FALSTAFF.
Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you
pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not
in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I
mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, and I brandish any
thing but a bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a
dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it: well, I
cannot last ever: but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if
they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I
am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were
not so terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be eaten to death
with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your
expedition!
FALSTAFF.
Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish
me forth?
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient
to bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my cousin
Westmoreland.
[Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant.]
FALSTAFF.
If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no
more separate age and covetousness than 'a can part young limbs and
lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and
so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!
PAGE.
Sir?
FALSTAFF.
What money is in my purse?
PAGE.
Seven groats and two pence.
FALSTAFF.
I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
purse:
borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is

incurable. Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince;
this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old Mistress Ursula,
whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white
hair of my chin. About it: you know where to find me. [Exit Page.]
A
pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays
the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars
for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good
wit will make use of any thing: I will turn diseases to commodity.
[Exit.]
SCENE III. York. The Archbishop's palace.
[Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray, 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?
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.
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
incensed fire of injuries.
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:
But if without
him we be thought too feeble,
My judgement 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
Of aids
incertain should not be admitted.
ARCHBISHOP.
'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
It was
young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
LORD BARDOLPH.
It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering 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 leap'd into destruction.
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
We see the 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,
Then we must 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,
Which is almost to pluck a
kingdom down
And