TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

Summary

PROLOGUE.

In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece

The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd,

Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,

Fraught with the ministers and instruments

Of cruel war: Sixty, and nine, that wore

Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay

Put forth toward Phrygia: and their vow is made,

To ransack Troy; within whose strong immures

The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,

With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel.

To Tenedos they come;

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge

Their warlike fraughtage: Now on Darclan plains

The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch

Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,

Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan,

And Antenorides, with massy staples,

And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,

Speer up the sons of Troy.

Now, expectation, tickling skittish spirits,

On one and other side, Trojan and Greek

Sets all on hazard:—And hither am I come

A prologue arm'd,—but not in confidence

Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but suited

In like conditions as our argument,—

To tell you, fair beholders, that our play

Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,

'Ginning in the middle; starting thence away

To what may be digested in a play.

Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;

Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.