THE TRAGEDIE OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA The Prologue In Troy there lyes the Scene: From Iles of Greece The Princes Orgillous, their high blood chaf’d Haue to the Port of Athens ſent their ſhippes Fraught with the miniſters and inſtruments Of cruell Warre: Sixty and nine that wore Their Crownets Regall, from th’ Athenian bay Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made To ranſacke Troy, within whoſe ſtrong emures The rauiſh’d Helen, Menelaus Queene, With wanton Paris sleepes, and that’s the Quarrell. To Tenedos they come, And the deepe-drawing Barke do there diſgorge Their warlike frautage: now on Dardan Plaines The freſh and yet unbruiſed Greekes do pitch Their braue Pauillions. Priams ſix-gated City, Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, And Antenonidus with maſsie Staples And correſponſiue and fulfilling Bolts Stirre up the Sonnes of Troy. Now Expectation tickling skittiſh ſpirits, On one and other ſide, Troian and Greeke, Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come, A Prologue arm’d, but not in confidence Of Authors pen, or Actors voyce, but ſuited In like conditions, as our Argument, To tell you (faire Beholders) that our Play Leapes ore the vaunt and firſtlings of those broyles, Beginning in the middle. ſtarting thence away, To what may be digeſted in a Play: Like, or finde fault, do as your pleaſures are, Now good, or bad, ’tis but the chance of Warre. Actus Primus. Scœna Prima. _Enter Pandarus and Troylus_ _Troylus_. Call here my Varlet, Ile vnarme againe. Why should I warre without the walls of Troy That finde ſuch cruell battell here within? Each Troian that is maſter of his heart, Let him to field, _Troylus_, alas hath none. _Pan_. Will this geere nere be mended? _Troy_. The Greeks are strong, & and skilful to their ſtrength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceneſſe Valiant: But I am weaker then a womans teare: Tamer then ſleepe, fonder then ignorance; Leſſe valiant then the Virgin in the night, And skillneſſe as vnpractis’d Infancie. _Pan_. Well, I haue told you enough of this: For my part, Ile not meddle nor make no farther. Hee that will haue a Cake out of the Wheate muſt needes tarry the grinding. _Troy_. Haue I not tarried? _Pan_. I the grinding, but you muſt tarry the bolting. _Troy_. Haue I not tarried? _Pan_. I the bolting; but you muſt tarry the leau’ing. _Troy_. Still haue I tarried. _Pan_. I to the leauening: but heeres yet in the word hereafter the Kneading, the making of the Cake, the heating of the Ouen, and the Baking; nay, you muſt ſtay the cooling too, or you may chance to burne your lips. _Troy_. Patience herſelfe, what Goddeſſe ere ſhe be, Doth leſſer blench at ſufferance, then I doe: At _Priams_ Royall Table doe I ſit; And when faire _Creſſid_ comes into my thoughts, So (Traitor) then ſhe comes, when ſhe is thence. _Pan_. Well: She look’d yeſternight fairer, then euer I ſaw her looke, Or any woman eſſe.