that when hee is gone, and his Commedies out of fale, you will fcramble for them, and fet up a new English Inquifition. Take this for a warning, and at the perrill of your pleafures loffe, and Iudgements, refufe not, nor like this the leffe, for not being fullied, with the fmoaky breath of the multitude; but thanke fortune for the fcape it hath made amongst you. Since by the grand poffeffors wills I beleeve you fhould have prayd for them rather then beene prayd. And fo I leaue all fuch to bee prayd for (for the ftates of their wits healths) that will not praife it. Vale.

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

PANDARUS, Uncle to Cressida.

AGAMEMNON, the Grecian General.

MENELAUS, his Brother.

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 a Grecian Camp before it.

IN

THE PROLOGUE

'N 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 th' 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 Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Trojan,
And Antenorides, with massy staples

This Prologue is found only in the folio; and Steevens and Ritson conjectured that it was not written by Shakespeare. White suggested that its style is not unlike Chapman's, and the suggestion has been received with some favour. It hardly fits, however, with the notion that Chapman was the "rival poet" of the Sonnets, and surely the movement and the lift of the lines (cf. the Choruses in Henry V.) are not unworthy of Shakespeare, who was

10

not averse, by the way, to profit-
ing from the style of others. And
would Chapman have made the
Greeks set out from Athens? (R)
2 orgulous, proud, haughty.
• crownets, coronets. (R)
8 immures, walls. (R)
18 fraughtage, freight. (R)
15 brave, fine-looking. Cf. I.
ii. 195, 199, &c. (R)

16-17 These are mediæval names for the gates of Troy, probably derived from Caxton's "Recuyell." (Dyce.)

And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr 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 vant and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning 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, 't is but the chance of war.

18 fulfilling, i. e. bolts that fill full the massy staples. (w)

19 Sperr, shut, close. The first folio, Stirre, by a manifest misprint which Theobald happily corrected.

23 A prologue arm'd. The prologue speakers customarily wore black cloaks, but there are other

20

30

instances in which they are directed to appear in armour ; and here the martial action of the play, not a bold championing of author or actor, makes the warlike garb appropriate.

27 vant, i. e. beginning. From the French avant. The folio has vaunt.