I
N Troy, there lies the scene : from Isles of Greece

The Princes orgillous, their high blood cbafod,
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 régal, from th' Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made
To ransack Troy; witbin whose strong immures,
Tbe ravijb'd Helen, Menelaus' Queen,
With wanton Paris Aceps, and that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come-
And tbe deep-drawing barks do tbere disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains,
Tbe frefs and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions. Priam's ''fix gates i'th' city,
Dardan and Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Trojan,
And Antenorides, with masy staples
And corresponsive and full-filling bolts,
? Sperrl up tbe fons of Troy.
Now Expectation tickling skirti spirits
On one and other fide, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on bazard. Hither am I come
A Prologue arm’d, but not in confidence
Of Author's per, or Actor's voice; but suited
In like conditions as our argument ;
To tell you (fair bebolders) that our play:
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
'Ginning i'th' middle : starting thence away
Towbat may be digested in a Play.
Like, or find fault, do as your pleasures are,
Now good, or bad, 'ris but the chance of war.

DRA i fix-gated city, ... old edit. Theob. emend.

Stis ... old edit, Theob. emend.

A 3

PRIAM,
Hector,
Troilus,
Paris,
Deiphobus,

TROJAN S.
Helenus,
Æneas,
Pandarus,
Antenor,
A bastard son of Priam, j
Agamemnon,)
Achilles,
Ajax,
Menelaus,
Ulyflès

GREEK S.
Nestor,
Diomedes,
Patroclus,
Thersites,
Calchas,
Helen, Wife to Menelaus, in Love with Paris.
Andromache, Wife to Hector.
Caffandra, Daughter to Priam, a Prophetess.
Cressida, Daughter to Calchas, in Love with Troilus.
Alexander, Servant to Crellida.
Boy, Page to Troilus.
Trojan and Greek Soldiers, with other Attendants.

SCENE Troy and the Grecian Camp.
The Story originally written by Lollius an old Lombard

Autbor, and since by Chaucer. Pope. It is also found in an old English Story-book of the three

destructions of Troy, from which many of the circumstances in this Play are borrow'd, they being to be found no where else.

Theobald.

TRO ILUS

• TROIL US and CRESSIDA.

A C T I.

SCENE I.

Priam's Palace within the Walls of Troy, but fupposed to bave a htuation a little distant fron

the rest of the City.

Enter Pandarus and Troilus.

TROILUS.

C

ALL here my varlet, I'll unarm again.
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within ?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field, Troilus alas ! hath none.

Pan. Will this geer ne'er be mended ?
Troi. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant.
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,

A4

Tamer (a) Before this Play of Troilus and Cressida printed in 1609 is a Bookfeller's preface, fhewing that forft imprefion to have been before the Play bad been a&ted, and that it was published without Shakespear's knowledge from a copy that had fallen into the Bookseller's bands. Mr. Dryden thinks this one of the first of our Author's Plays : But on the contrary, it may be judg' from the foremention'd Preface bat it was one of his last; and the great number of observations, both moral and politick, (with which ibis piece is crowded more than ery orber of bis seems to confirm that opinion, Pope.