Title page TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, A TRAGEDY, by SHAKESPEARE. AN INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES CRITICAL and ILLUSTRATIVE, ARE ADDED, BY THE AUTHORS of the DRAMATIC CENSOR LONDON: Printed for JOHN BELL, near Exeter-Exchange, in the Strand; and C. Etherington, at York. MDCCLXXIV.

INTRODUCTION.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. The great end of every drama is, or should be, instruction relished by amusement; so far as any production fails of this, it fails in value. Judging similarly of Troilus and Cressida, it is a very censurable effusion of dramatic fancy; for except some very fine sentiments scattered up and down, it is void of the essential requisites; besides, characters are so oddly blended, the scenes are so multiplied, and the plot so very strangely wound up, that we think it stands but a poor chance of giving either public or private satisfaction.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. Agamemnon. Menelaus. Achilles. Patroclus. Thersites. Ulysses. Nestor. Ajax. Diomedes. Calchas. Servant to Diomedes [Servant 3]. Priam. Hector. Paris. Troilus. Helenus. Deiphobus. Margarelon. Æneas [Aeneas]. Pandarus, Uncle to Cressida. Serv. to Cressida [Alexander]; Serv. to Troilus [Servant 1]; Serv. to Paris [Servant 2]. Helen. Andromache. Cassandra. Cressida. Soldiers and divers Attendants, Greek and Trojan. [Boy], [Trojans] Scene, Troy; and Plains adjoining.

^note.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA* [Footnote: ^note.

PROLOGUE* [Footnote:
In Troy, there lies the scene. From Isles of Greece
The princes orgillous, 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 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 Thymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Troyan,
And Antenoridas) with massy staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperrs 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 condition 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.

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