PROLOGUE Troilus and Cressida  Shakespeare homepage  |  Troiles and Cressida  | Act 1, Prologue 

 Next scene  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 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, Troien, 

 And Antenorides, with massy staples 

 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 vaunt 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, 'tis but the chance of war. 

 Shakespeare homepage  |  Troiles and Cressida  | Act 1, Prologue 

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