The History of Troilus and Cressida

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: Perlego
• Year: 1997
• eBook ISBN: 9700000001124
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

In 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 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 war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city, Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, 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, Troyan 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.