HELENUS,

ENEAS,

ANTENOR, Trojan Commanders.

CALCHAS, a Trojan Priest, taking part with the Greeks.

PANDARUS, Uncle to Cressida.

MARGARELON, a Bastard Son of Priam.

THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Grecian.

ALEXANDER, Servant to Cressida.

Servant to Troilus; Servant to Paris; Servant to Diomedes.

HELEN, Wife to Menelaus.

ANDROMACHE, Wife to Hector.

CASSANDRA, Daughter to Priam; a Prophetess.

CRESSIDA, Daughter to Calchas.

Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants.

SCENE. Troy, and the Grecian Camp before it.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

PROLOGUE.

IN Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,
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 ravished 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 Dardan 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,
Sperr1 up the sons of Troy.

1 This prologue is wanting in the quarto editions. Steevens thinks that it is not by Shakspeare; and that perhaps the drama itself is not entirely of his construction. It appears to have escaped Heminge and Condell, the editors of the first folio, until the volume was almost printed off; and is thrust in between the tragedies and histories without any enumeration of pages, except on one leaf. There seems to have been a previous play on the same subject by Henry Chettle and Thomas Decker. Entries appear in the accounts of Henslowe of money advanced to them in earnest of Troylles and Cressida, in April and May, 1599.

2 Proud, disdainful.

3 Freight.

4 Sperr or spar, to close, fasten, or bar up.

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come,
A prologue armed, 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.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Troy. Before Priam's Palace.

Enter TROILUS, armed, and PANDARUS.

Troilus. CALL 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 gear ne'er be mended?

Tro. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,3

Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant ;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,

4

Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance;

1 i. e. the avant, what went before.

2 This word, which we have from the old French varlet or vadlet,

anciently signified a groom, a servant of the meaner sort.

3 i. e. in addition to.

4 i. e. more weak.

Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skilless as unpractised infancy.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding.

Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

Tro. Still have I tarried.

Pan. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word-hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench' at sufferance than I do.

At Priam's royal table do I sit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,-
So, traitor!-when she comes!When is she thence?
Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever
I saw her look, or any woman else.

Tro. I was about to tell thee,-When my heart,
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have (as when the sun doth light a storm)

Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile;

But sorrow, that is couched in seeming gladness,
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to,) there were no more comparison between the women.-But, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her, -But I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but

1 To blench is to shrink, start, or fly off.

Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,

When I do tell thee, There my hopes lie drowned,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep

They lie indrenched. I tell thee, I am mad
In Cressid's love. Thou answerest, She is fair;
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice;
Handlest1 in thy discourse-O, that her hand!
In whose comparison all whites are ink,

Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
The cygnet down is harsh, and spirit of sense?

Hard as the palm of ploughmen! This thou tell'st me,
As true thou tell'st me, when I say—I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth.

Tro. Thou dost not speak so much.

Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is; if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.3

Tro. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus?

Pan. I have had my labor for my travel; ill thought on of her, and ill thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labor.

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

Pan. Because she is kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an she were a black-amoor; 'tis all one to me.

Tro. Say I, she is not fair?

1 Handlest is here used metaphorically, with an allusion, at the same time, to its literal meaning.

2 Warburton rashly altered this to ". spite of sense."-Hanmer reads:-" to th' spirit of sense;" which is considered right and necessary by Mason. It appears to mean "The spirit of sense (i. e. the most fine or exquisite sense of touch,) is harsh and hard as the palm of a ploughman, compared to the sensation of softness in pressing Cressid's hand." 3 The remedy lies with herself."