GLOUCESTER. 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 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

          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-

          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

          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.

          Brother, good day. What means this armed guard

          That waits upon your Grace?

        CLARENCE. His Majesty,

          Tend'ring my person's safety, hath appointed

          This conduct to convey me to th' Tower.

        GLOUCESTER. Upon what cause?

        CLARENCE. Because my name is George.

        GLOUCESTER. 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 should be new-christ'ned in the Tower.

          But what's the matter, Clarence? May I know?

        CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest

          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

          Hath mov'd his Highness to commit me now.

        GLOUCESTER. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:

          'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;

          My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she

          That