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From The Life and
Death of Richard the Third, Act 1, Scene 1
By
William Shakespeare
Now is
the winter of our discontent
Made
glorious summer by this sun 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;
Our
bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our
stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our
dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged
war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now,
instead of mounting barded steeds
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 shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made
to court an amorous looking-glass;
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,
Deformed,
unfinish'd, sent before my time
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,
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,
I am
determined to prove a villain
And 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 king
In
deadly hate the one against the other:
And if
King Edward be as true and just
As I am
subtle, false and treacherous,
This day
should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
About a
prophecy, which says that 'G'
Of
Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive,
thoughts, down to my soul: here
Clarence comes.
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