I. iii. 36-41. Many emendations have been sug¬

gested for this apparently corrupt passage. It is probable that a line has been lost here, but it is pos¬ sible to understand Lord Bardolph’s speech without changing the text. Lord Hastings has just been remonstrating with Lord Bardolph for his pessimism, saying that hope never injured any cause. Lord
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The Second Part of
Bardolph replies: ‘Yes, it does, — if, for example, this present business of war (indeed this very action now contemplated, this cause that is now on foot), lives merely on such desperate hopes as buds which ap¬ pear too early in the spring; for hope gives less warrant that these buds will become fruit than de¬ spair gives that the frosts will destroy them.’