reference to the first line of william shakespeare's play 'richard iii'. the first part of this play is as follows:

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.

'Richard III' is the last play of Shakespeare's tetralogy of English history: it concludes a chronicle started by the three parts of 'Henry VI'. This four-play saga was composed early in Shakespeare's career and most scholars assign 'Richard III' a composition date of 1591 or 1592. It is believed that 'Richard III' was first performed between 1600 and 1601.

Culminating with the defeat of the evil King richard iii by the Duke of Richmond (who became Henry VII) at the battle of Bosworth field in the play's final act, 'Richard III' is a dramatized and sometimes fictionalized account of the historical events that concluded in the year 1485, when the rule of the Plantagenet family over England was replaced by the Tudor monarchy.'richard iii' is dominated by Richard the hunchback Duke of Gloucester, who becomes Richard III through a series of horrible acts, killing off his enemies, his kinsmen, his wife and most of his supporters before reaching the Battle of Bosworth and crying out "My kingdom for a horse." In a work that is as much melodrama as history, Richard is a pure, self-professed villain of monstrous proportions. His evil drives the plot; and until his final in the play's last act, the good forces opposing him are weak, splintered, and ready prey for his schemes.