Exit with the body of his son

KING

Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,

Here sits a king more woeful than you are.

[III, ii, 124–95] Another angry Richard, the crookbacked Duke of Gloucester, broods bitterly on his brother’s handsome form and courteous ways – and the fecundity that has set so many obstacles in his own path to the throne:

Ay, Edward will use women honourably.

Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,

That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,

To cross me from the golden time I look for!

And yet, between my soul’s desire and me –

The lustful Edward’s title burièd –

Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,

And all the unlooked-for issue of their bodies,

To take their rooms ere I can place myself:

A cold premeditation for my purpose!

Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;

Like one that stands upon a promontory

And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,

Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,

And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,

Saying he’ll lade it dry to have his way;

So do I wish the crown, being so far off;

And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;

And so I say I’ll cut the causes off,

Flattering me with impossibilities.

My eye’s too quick, my heart o’erweens too much,

Unless my hand and strength could equal them.

Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard,

What other pleasure can the world afford?

I’ll make my heaven in a lady’s lap,

And deck my body in gay ornaments,

And ’witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.

O, miserable thought! And more unlikely

Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns!

Why, love forswore me in my mother’s womb;

And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,

She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe

To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub;

To make an envious mountain on my back,

Where sits deformity to mock my body;

To shape my legs of an unequal size;

To disproportion me in every part,

Like to a chaos, or an unlicked bear-whelp

That carries no impression like the dam.

And am I then a man to be beloved?

O, monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!

Then, since this earth affords no joy to me

But to command, to check, to o’erbear such

As are of better person than myself,

I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,

And whiles I live, t’account this world but hell,

Until my misshaped trunk that bear this head

Be round impalèd with a glorious crown,

And yet I know not how to get the crown,

For many lives stand between me and home;

And I – like one lost in a thorny wood,

That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,

Seeking a way and straying from the way,

Not knowing how to find the open air,