tradition, form and ceremonious duty

Photo: Alastair Muir

Thus play I in one person many people, 
And none contented: sometimes am I king; 
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, 
And so I am: then crushing penury 
Persuades me I was better when a king; 
Then am I king'd again: and by and by 
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke, 
And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be, 
Nor I nor any man that but man is 
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased 
With being nothing.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin.