Page 1103 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

ACT I IT

Scene I IT

Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, solus.

RICHARD

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our House
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, [5]
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums chang’d to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag’d War hath smooth’d his wrinkled front:
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds [10]
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shap’d for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; [15]
I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time [20]
Into this breathing world scarce half made up -
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them -
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time, [25]
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,