Shakespeare : Anglais renforcé.

Richard’s monologue introduces the backcloth to the play. People are celebrating the King’s victory in a famous war of England, the war of The Roses between 2 families : The York and the Lancaster.
Thanks to the King’s victory, war is now over.

Times of war VS Times of Peace
The sounds of warfare have been replaced by the singing/dancing revelers.
The soldier’s face is said to be wrinkled + grim out of worry and sadness whereas now his smoothed forehead expresses relief.

In times of war, men would spend their time fighting and frightening their enemies whereas now that war is over, they will spend their time courting and seducing ladies.

The soldier has changed into a lover.
Military marches have changed into ballads and love songs/merry song.

Line 1/10 > Turning point « But » Break. I => New main focus
As they have no enemies to fight, they are bored.
As a result, peace to him is synonymous with boredom.
He has : no delight in life/ no pleasure apart from « to spy his shadow in the sun ». Richard undertakes to tell us about his physical aspects. L.13 > curtailed of his fair proportion, deformed, unfinished > long list of past participates. Nature’s fault. « cheated by nature »

He can’t seduce ladies (in contrary to his fellow soldiers) so he spends his time spying on his shadow. (main pastime)
This deformed shadow seems to (exert?) a morbid fascination/attraction on him.
As the sun (The king Edward 4) is the one who reminds Richard of his deformed body (=shadow), we are made to understand that he considers killing the king so that everyone will forget about his deformity when he has power. People might forget. So not only will he have the power, but he will certainly be popular with women.
The king reminds him of his inferiority, he cannot prove to be a lover.

His target > Overthrow the King
His strategy > By setting his brothers one against the others / By causing mayhem (semer la pagaille) in the