A small confession: my first introduction to this opening soliloquy was as a child on a Saturday afternoon from none other than Arnold Judas Rimmer in Red Dwarf. He and Lister are marooned and, to distract Lister from his hunger until they are rescued, Rimmer says he can recite some Shakespeare. Encouraged by Lister he adopts a bent-over pose and proceeds to recite the first word of Richard III Act 1 Scene 1 (“Now….”), shortly followed by “that’s all I can remember”.
Many years later I’d pick up a Penguin version with a wonderfully accessible analysis by way of an introduction. I still have that copy; it is, unfortunately, currently in storage whilst we move house otherwise it would prove quite valuable in this article. Alas, to the memory bank and a fresh read.
The aim of this Deep Dive is to better understand how Shakespeare manages to build a positive relationship between Richard and the audience where the latter is lenient and amused by Richard; we are almost apologetic to his heinous acts. Richard is presented as a deformed, arch-backed schemer who, from this opening scene, is plotting for his brother King Edward’s overthrow to place himself on the throne. Not a character trait to traditionally win over an audience, it is certainly managed and throughout the play we are entertained more than appalled by the treacherous and treasonous acts played out upon the stage.
This soft impression is initiated from the opening scene by having Richard bare his all to us: we, the audience, have insight into his motives, his insecurities and his underhand mechanisms and we thus better understand than the other characters. It makes us subliminally complicit through association.
It’s the same technique Anthony Burgess adopts in A Clockwork Orange to assist in us taking a more forgiving approach to abhorrent acts. We are spoken to directly by Richard alone on stage and thus adopt, to no small extent, his contextual bias through lack of exposure to any other viewpoint.
That Richard, Duke of Gloucester, gets to open his own tale is an important privilege: he is his own Chorus. Imagine if Henry V opened with a Chorus that did not grant the warlike King such positive justification as assuming the port of Mars and stating famine, sword and fire crouch for employment.
As with previous Deep Dives the text will be presented in whole and then my breakdown will follow. Again, as with previous articles, the same caveat applies: I’ve no formal learning in the analysis of language and my observations and interpretations are based on my own self-directed reading. As always, I welcome comments, criticisms and questions and thank those that have engaged with the previous articles.
Richard 3 Act 1 Scene 1
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; 5
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,
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; 15
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 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, 25
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 30
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
Richard contextualises for the audience: the Wars of the Roses are over (almost, anyway) and peace has mostly arrived to the realm. Is it too far a stretch to suggest ‘discontent’ is a rather flippant dismissal of thirty years’ civil waring? If not, it immediately suggests Richard’s (Duke the Gloucester at this point) mind is perhaps elsewhere.
Shakespeare has a wonderful play with pathetic fallacies here: winter; summer; sun/Son. His lovely reference to Edward IV’s ascension as the ‘sun of York’ wonderfully connotes the peace brought but also puns as son of the House of York. The sibilance of summer, sun provide an actor with scope to ‘lay it on thick’ should he wish (note, though: Richard III has often been overacted as a cartoon-villain).
What of the Now, though? It’s commanding, directing, instructive; it’s blunt and without warmth. Running with this a little further one could suggest there’s a discordance with the sun and summer references in line 2, subtly communicating again that Richard’s words do not perhaps communicate all that he’s thinking.
The stressed syllable that falls on it, too, heightens its commanding tone. A trochaic inversion follows with two unstressed syllables on the ‘…is the…’ and permits a stressed syllable on the win of winter. The rest follows in normal iambic pentameter (contracting the glorious to two syllables instead of three).
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
More pathetic fallacy in these straightforward iambic lines with clouds. Lour’d, archaic loured meaning ‘sullen; frowning’. It’s a nice image continuing the extended metaphor of the sun of York shining through. But…
Is there a sarcastic overtone to line three, followed by a bitter spiteful tone in line four? The stressed wide-mouthed cl in clouds followed by its unstressed, falling long vowel comes across as a sneer; it rolls nicely into the very plosive d and p of deep and b of bosom and buried. The effect is a not-imperceptible air of insincerity.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; 5
Our bruiséd arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
There’s that now again. It’s important to remember the visual on stage for these lines: this crippled hunch-back talking of battle injuries could raise a smile with the right delivery. His use of second personal pronoun is interesting: here we have a disfigured man but who was an accomplished military commander and fought in numerous important battles including Barnet and Tewkesbury. Its use three times suggests an insistence, an irritation. It builds to a very overt sarcastic tone.
The three lines of juxta positioned antithesis (bruised arms – monuments; stem alarums – merry meetings; dreadful marches – delightful measures) really convey the sarcasm, especially the delightful measures. Throughout these lines Richard really gets into his stride: the alliteration of merry meetings rolling on to the double alliteration of dreadful marches – delightful measures. Too much, perhaps, as he loses the meter a touch with the last two lines comprising additional unstressed syllables.
Re bruised arms this can be read as physically bruised arms through injury; or dented/damaged weaponry. It’s a nice little play on the words. The phrase stern alarums is also used in Macbeth (The sword of war is sharpened | the keen alarm bellows stern alarums with alarums meaning our modern ‘alarm’ and stern equating to ‘keen’.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds 10
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
Now we’re talking. Here Richard’s sarcasm, his sneer, his disdain is lain bare. Line 9 starts with a brilliantly termed ‘spondee’ – two stressed syllables. It pushes the unstressed syllable on to the long internal vowel of visage. Class exercise: try saying it to yourself without sounding condescending. The falling tone will make it rather difficult.
Mount barbed steeds and fright the souls of fearful adversaries are wonderful phrases. The plosive Bs in barbed and the Fs of fright and fearful sound scornful. The meter builds to somewhat of a crescendo on fearful adversaries, capitalised on by Richard which a bit of a half-rhyming couplet (steeds; adversaries). It has the effect of forcing the next line to sound flat and whimsical: capers in a Lady’s chamber (blatant filth) before ending, brilliantly, with lascivious pleasing of a lute.
Lascivious. What a word. It is almost impossible to say without scorn: the sibilance in the line matches the tone of lascivious which is delivered after two unstressed syllables forcing the first stress on the first -sci-: it’s spat out. There’s no denying Richard’s bitterness now. Where’s the warmth towards this sun of York now?
The full stop forces a long pause and marks a clear change: this point forward Richard becomes personal. There are no first person pronouns from lines 1 to 13; from 14 to the end of the speech there are ten.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; 15
I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
Again another spondee, hitting home the I and marks a clear tone shift towards the introspective. shaped for sportive tricks is bitter sounding with the sibilance and the sarcasm of ‘tricks’; ‘want love’s majesty (want meaning ‘lacking’) borders on the lewd in reference to the ambling nymph.
Richard at this point loses his meter. Line 16 has twelve syllables. It communicates his frustration, his self-pity; his envy at brother Edward. Shakespeare is beginning to sow the seeds of our pity for (of?) Richard. He’s a war hero; has power and prestige; he’s close to the throne; yet he can’t get his manhood’s wick wet.
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, 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, 25
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
Within these lines is the beginning of Richard’s justification for what he shall do. Being so deformed, unfinished he cannot enjoy the piping times of peace – societal repulsion towards him prohibits this. Following from line 16’s mess of a meter, throughout these lines he controls it far more. It can be read a couple of ways: calculating, woeful. Indeed, the latter seems more reasonable, at least in the first half (to line 24).
There’s a prosaic element to them; the language is less emphatic and more descriptive: it’s Richard giving voice to his truer emotions, less wrapped up in lofty rhetoric. But because of that it’s somewhat more deeply moving; it comes across as more honest, more vulnerable. Richard does not hide or gloss his emotions from the audience: he bares them onstage and gives voice to his bitterness. In this piping time of peace what chance has a man who looks as he to obtain honour; in battle his deformities are dismissed by his courage on the battlefield.
In spite of the prose style of speaking there are still some lovely literary devices and they come in the latter half as the tone changes – it suggests his anger and disgust brewing again: the plosive alliteration of piping time of peace; the sibilant alliteration of spy my shadow in the sun.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain 30
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
And there we have it: I am determined to prove a villain.
It’s a very interesting point to take a step back here. Shakespeare is able to create a wicked villain, an unsightly deformity, who by his own admission is determined to be a villain; and yet, it raises a smile of anticipated excitement in the audience.
What of it that he despises the days of peace, these days of manners; why, if he can’t partake in them why should anybody else be permitted? To use modern parlance, Richard is based. He owns his thoughts, his actions. Despite the heinous acts, he has ambition to do them in full light of their meaning. God loves a trier, and an honest one at that. Dare I say it, his insight into his actions is justification. His admission to be a villain immediately pulls us on-side.
This is not a pantomime puppet; the moment for Richard to declare his intention has been crafted carefully. The audience, far from being repulsed now, understand. Coming immediately after his emotional words of self-pity describing how his physical stature excludes him from enjoying these days of peace the audience have complete sight of why. By association we’re guilty, too.
Line 30 and 31 seem to be spoken so slowly, with a smile. The long vowels, the slow ponderous tone, the choice of ‘villain’ with the slow internal vowels, almost alliterative with the v. The epiomone of the repeated days ending line 29 and 31 satisfyingly bookends the admission of Richard’s intent.
© Cromwell’s Codpiece 2023
