Sets all on hazard :-And hither am I come
A prologue arm'd,6-but not in confidence
Of author's pen, or actor's voice; but fuited
In like conditions as our argument,-
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt' and firftlings of thofe broils,

"And in ftorye | lyke as it is founde,

Tymbria was named the seconde ;

"And the thyrde | called Helyas,

"The fourthe gate | hyghte alfo Cetheas;
"The fyfthe Trojana, | the fyxth Anthonydes,

Stronge and mighty | both in werre and pes."

Lond. Empr. by R. Pynfon, 1513, fol. B. II. ch. 11. The Troye Boke was fomewhat modernized, and reduced into regular stanzas, about the beginning of the laft century, under the name of, The Life and Death of Hector-who fought a Hundred mayne Battailes in open Field against the Grecians; wherein there were flaine on both Sides Fourteene Hundred and Sixe Thoufand, Fourfcore and Sixe Men. Fol. no date. This work Dr. Fuller, and feveral other criticks, have erroneously quoted as the original; and obferve, in confequence, that "if Chaucer's coin were of greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's were of a more refined ftandard for purer language: fo that one might mistake him for a modern writer."

FARMER. On other occafions, in the course of this play, I fhall generally infert quotations from the Troye Booke modernized, as being the most intelligible of the two. STEEVENS.

A prologue arm'd,] I come here to speak the prologue, and come in armour; not defying the audience, in confidence of either the author's or actor's abilities, but merely in a character suited to the subject, in a dress of war, before a warlike play.

JOHNSON.

Motteux feems to have borrowed this idea in his Prologue to Farquhar's Twin Rivals:

7

"With drums and trumpets in this warring age,
"A martial prologue fhould alarm the ftage."

STEEVENS.

the vaunt-] i. e. the avant, what went before. So,

in King Lear:

"Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts."

STEEVENS.

'Ginning in the middle; ftarting thence away
To what may be digefted in a play.

Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good, or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

The vaunt is the vanguard, called, in our author's time, the vaunt-guard. PERCY.

8-firftlings-] A fcriptural phrase, fignifying the first produce or offspring. So, in Genefis, iv. 4: " And Abel, he alfo brought of the firftlings of his flock." STEEVENS.

Antenor,

Calchas, a Trojan Prieft, taking part with the

Greeks.

Pandarus, Uncle to Creffida.

Margarelon, a baftard Son of Priam.

Agamemnon, the Grecian General;
Menelaus, his Brother,

Therfites, a deformed and fcurrilous Grecian.
Alexander, Servant to Creffida.

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

Helen, Wife to Menelaus.

Andromache, Wife to Hector.

Caffandra, Daughter to Priam; a Prophetess.
Creffida, Daughter to Calchas.

Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants.

SCENE, Troy, and the Grecian Camp before it.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Troy. Before Priam's Palace.

Enter TROILUs armed, and PANDARUS.

TRO. Call here my varlet,' I'll unarm again :
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find fuch 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?2

1 my varlet,] This word anciently fignified a fervant or footman to a knight or warrior. So, Holinfhed, speaking of the battle of Agincourt: " diverse were releeved by their varlets, and conveied out of the field." Again, in an ancient epitaph in the church-yard of Saint Nicas at Arras :

Cy gift Hakin et fon varlet,

"Tout dis-armè et tout di-pret,

"Avec son espé et falloche," &c. STEEVENS.

Concerning the word varlet, fee Recherches hiftoriques fur les M. C. TUTET.

cartes à jouer. Lyon, 1757, p. 61.

2 Will this geer ne'er be mended ?]

There is fomewhat pro

verbial in this queftion, which I likewise meet with in the interlude of King Darius, 1565:

"Wyll not yet this geere be amended,

"Nor your finful acts corrected?" STEEVENS.

TRO. The Greeks are ftrong, and fkilful to their ftrength,3

Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than fleep, fonder4 than ignorance;
Lefs valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skill-lefs 5 as unpractis'd 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 fhe be, Doth leffer blench" at fufferance than I do.

3

-skilful to their strength, &c.] i. e. in addition to their ftrength. The fame phrafeology occurs in Macbeth. See Vol. X. p. 16, n. 2. STEEVENS.

4

-fonder-] i. e. more weak, or foolish. See Vol. VII. p. 328, n. 8. MALONE.

And skill-lefs &c.] Mr. Dryden, in his alteration of this play, has taken this fpeech as it ftands, except that he has changed skill-lefs to artless, not for the better, becaufe skill-lefs refers to skill and skilful. JOHNSON.

6 Doth leffer blench-] To blench is to fhrink, ftart, or fly off. So, in Hamlet: