King Richard III : Large Print

GLOUCESTER. Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York;And all the clouds that lour'd upon our houseIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;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 steedsTo fright the souls of fearful adversaries,He capers nimbly in a lady's chamberTo the lascivious pleasing of a lute.But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,Nor made to court an amorous looking-glassI-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majestyTo strut before a wanton ambling nymphI-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my timeInto this breathing world scarce half made up,And that so lamely and unfashionableThat dogs bark at me as I halt by themWhy, I, in this weak piping time of peace,Have no delight to pass away the time,Unless to spy my shadow in the sunAnd descant on mine own deformity.And therefore, since I cannot prove a loverTo entertain these fair well-spoken days,I am determined to prove a villainAnd hate the idle pleasures of these days.Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,To set my brother Clarence and the KingIn deadly hate the one against the other;