THE TRAGEDY OF

KING RICHARD III

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

London. A street,

Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, solus. Glou. 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

wreaths;

our brows bound with victorious

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 barbed steeds 10
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

2. "Sun of York"; probably an allusion to the device of a sun, the cognizance of Edward IV. Qq., "sonne"; Ff., "Son"; Rowe, “sun.” -I. G.

8. "Measures," dances.-H. N. H.

10. "Barbed," that is, steeds caparisoned or clothed in the trappings of war. The word is properly barded, from equus bardatus.—

H. N. H.

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 ma-
jesty

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,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity:

13. "Is the warlike sound of drum and trump turned to the soft noise of lyre and lute? the neighing of barbed steeds, whose loudness filled the air with terror, and whose breaths dimmed the sun with smoke, converted to delicate tunes and amorous glances?" (Lyly's Alexander and Campaspe, 1584).-H. N. H.

15. "to court an amorous looking-glass"; Vaughan thought the line might be improved by a slight emendation:-"an amorous looking lass" (!)-I. G.

19. "Feature" is here used rather in the sense of proportion. So in More's description of Richard: "Little of stature, ill-featured of limmes, crooke-backed." "Dissembling," the commentators say, is not used here in the sense of deceiving, but of putting together things unlike, or assembling things that are not semblable, as a brave mind in a misshapen body. It may be so; but we rather think the meaning to be that nature has cheated him out of beauty in much the same way as cheating is commonly done.-H.

N. H.

22. "unfashionable"; the adverbial sense is carried on from "lamely.”—C. H. H.

26. "spy"; so Qq.; Ff., "see.”—I. G.

36

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

40

Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clar-

ence comes.

Enter Clarence, guarded, and Brakenbury.

Brother, good day: what means this armed guard

That waits upon your grace?

Clar.

His majesty,

Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed This conduct to convey me to the Tower. Glou. Upon what cause?

Clar.

Because my name is George.
Glou. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;
He should, for that, commit your godfathers:
O, belike his majesty hath some intent

That you shall be new-christen'd in the Tower.
But what's the matter, Clarence? may I know?

32. “Inductions" are beginnings, preparations;, things that draw on or induce events.-H. N. H.

Clar. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest 52
As yet I do not: but, as I can learn,

He hearkens after prophecies and dreams;
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,
And says a wizard told him that by G
His issue disinherited should be;

And, for my name of George begins with G,
It follows in his thought that I am he.

These, as I learn, and such like toys as these 60 Have moved his highness to commit me now. Glou. Why, this it is, when men are ruled by

women:

'Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower;
My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she
That tempers him to this extremity.

Was it not she and that good man of worship,
Anthony Woodville, her brother there,

57. This is founded on the following passage in Holinshed: "Some have reported, that the cause of this nobleman's death rose of a foolish prophesie, which was, that after K. Edward one should reigne, whose first letter of his name should be a G. Wherewith the king and queene were sore troubled, and began to conceive a greevous grudge against this duke, and could not be in quiet till they had brought him to his end. And as the divell is woont to incumber the minds of men which delite in such divelish fantasies, they said afterward, that that prophesie lost none of his effect, when, after king. Edward, Gloster usurped his kingdome."-H. N. H.

60. That is, fancies, freaks of imagination. Thus in Hamlet, "The very place put toys of desperation,

Without more motive, into every brain."-H. N. H.

61. "have"; so Qq. and F. 4; Ff. 1, 2, 3, "hath."-I. G.

65. "That tempers him to this extremity"; so Q. 1; Qq. 2-8 read, "That tempts him," etc., (Q. 3, “temps”); Ff. read, "That tempts him to this harsh extremity”; Anon. conj., “That tempts him now to this extremity."."-I. G.

67. "Woodville"; trisyllabic (perhaps with the punning pronunciation, wood-devil, i. e. mad devil).-C. H. H.

That made him send Lord Hastings to the
Tower,

From whence this present day he is deliver'd? We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe. 70 Clar. By heaven, I think there's no man is secure, But the queen's kindred and night-walking heralds,

That trudge betwixt the king and Mistress
Shore.

Heard ye not what an humble suppliant
Lord Hastings was to her for his delivery?
Glou. Humbly complaining to her deity
Got my lord chamberlain his liberty.
I'll tell you what; I think it is our way,
If we will keep in favor with the king,
To be her men and wear her livery:
The jealous o'erworn widow and herself,
Since that our brother dubb'd them gentle-

women,

80

Are mighty gossips in this monarchy. Brak. I beseech your graces both to pardon me; His majesty hath straitly given in charge That no man shall have private conference, Of what degree soever, with his brother. Glou. Even so; an 't please your worship, Brakenbury,

75. "was to her for his"; so Qq.; F. 1, “was, for her," "was, for his."-I. G.

81. "Widow and herself," the queen and Shore.--H. N. H.

83. “Gossips"; godmothers, hence (contemptuously) important and authoritative old women.-C. H. H.

In the quartos, "this monarchy." The folio changed this to our.— H. N. H.