But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,

Deformed, unfinished, 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 mewed up

About a prophecy which says that G

Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.

[I, ii, 227–63] As much in love with sexual as with political power, Richard glories in the hold he senses he has over Lady Anne, a woman with every conceivable reason to hate him:

Was ever woman in this humour wooed?

Was ever woman in this humour won?

I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long.

What? I that killed her husband and his father

To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,

With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness of my hatred by,

Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,

And I no friends to back my suit at all

But the plain devil and dissembling looks?

And yet to win her! All the world to nothing!

Ha!

Hath she forgot already that brave prince,

Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,

Stabbed in my angry mood at Tewkesbury?

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,

Framed in the prodigality of nature,

Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,

The spacious world cannot again afford;

And will she yet abase her eyes on me,

That cropped the golden prime of this sweet prince

And made her widow to a woeful bed?

On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety?

On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?

My dukedom to a beggarly denier

I do mistake my person all this while!

Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,

Myself to be a marvellous proper man.

I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass

And entertain a score or two of tailors

To study fashions to adorn my body.

Since I am crept in favour with myself

I will maintain it with some little cost.

But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave,

And then return lamenting to my love.