TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. A TRAGEDY.
Printed in the Year
1709.
-- 1812 --
Dramatis Personæ.
Priam, TROJAN.
Hector, TROJAN.Troilus, TROJAN.Paris, TROJAN.Deiphobus, TROJAN.Helenus, TROJAN.Æneas [Aeneas], TROJAN.Pandarus, TROJAN.Antenor, TROJAN.Agamemnon, GREEK.Achilles, GREEK.Ajax, GREEK.Menelaus, GREEK.Ulysses, GREEK.Nestor, GREEK.Diomedes, GREEK.Patroclus, GREEK.Thersites, GREEK.Calchas, GREEK.Helen, Wife to Menelaus, in Love with Paris.
Andromache, Wife to Hector.
Cressida, Daughter to Calchas, in Love with Troilus.
Trojan and Greek Soldiers, with other Attendants.
[Cassandra], [Alexander], [Boy], [Servant], [Margarelon], [Soldiers], [Myrmidon]SCENE Troy and the Grecian Camp.
-- 1813 --
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
THE PROLOGUE.
In Troy, there lyes 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 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 Pavillions. Priam's six-gated City,
Dardan, and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenonidus, with massy Staples,
And corresponsive and fulfilling Bolts,
Stir 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.
