And first to clear away the myth in connection with the idea that this is one of Shakespeare's late plays, or that it was only partly written by the poet, or written at different periods of his life. It may be confidently asserted that Shakespeare allowed no second hand to meddle with a work so personal to himself as this one, nor was he accustomed to seek the help of any collaborator in a play that he himself initiated. We know, besides, that he wrote with facility and rapidly. As to the date of the play, the evidence of the loose dramatic construction, and the preference for dialogue where there should be drama, place it during the period when Shakespeare was writing his histories. The grip that he ultimately obtained over the stage handling of a story so as to produce a culminating and overpowering impression on his audience is wanting in "Troilus and Cressida." In fact, it is impossible to believe that this play was written after "Julius Caesar," "Much Ado," or "Twelfth Night." Nor is there evidence of revision in the play, since there are no topical allusions to be found in it which point to a later date than 1598 except perhaps in the prologue, which could hardly have been written before 1601, and did not appear in print before 1623. Again, it is contended that there is too much wisdom crammed into the play to allow of its being an early composition. But the false ethics underlying the Troy story, which Shakespeare meant to satirize in "Troilus and Cressida," had been previously exposed in his poem of "Lucrece": "Show me the strumpet that began this stir, That with my nails her beauty I may tear. Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur This load of wrath that burning Troy did bear: Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here; And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die. "Why should the private pleasure of some one Become the public plague of many moe? Let sin, alone committed, light alone Upon his head that hath transgressed so; Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe: For one's offence why should so many fall, To plague a private sin in general. "Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies, Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds, Here friend by friend in bloody charnel lies, And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds, And one man's lust these many lives confounds; Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire, Troy had been bright with fame, and not with fire."