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, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan,
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, 't is but the chance of war.

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 such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan, that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
Pan. Will this gear ne'er be mended?

Tro. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;

But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance;
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,

And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part,

I'll

not meddle nor make no farther. He, that will have a cake out of the wheat, must tarry the grinding.

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 the oven, and the baking: nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance burn your lips.

Tro. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,

Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.

At Priam's royal table do I sit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,

So, traitor!- when she comes! When is she thence?

-

Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

Tro. I was about to tell thee, when my heart,

As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,

Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,

I have (as when the sun doth light a storm)
Bury'd this sigh in wrinkle of a smile;

But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness,
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, (well, go to) there were no more comparison between the women,but, for my part, she is my kinswoman: I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did: I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but

Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,

When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep

They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad

In Cressid's love: thou answer'st, she is fair;
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice;
Handlest in thy discourse, O! that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,

Writing their own reproach: to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman!

This thou tell'st me,
As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;

But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth.

Tro. Thou dost not speak so much.

Pan. 'Faith, I'll not meddle in 't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 't is the better for her; an she be not, she has the 'mends in her own hands.

Tro. Good Pandarus. How now, Pandarus!

Pan. I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but Sinall thanks for my labour.

Tro. What! art thou angry, Pandarus? what with me?

Pan. Because she 's kin to me, therefore, she 's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not, an she were a black-a-moor; 't is all one to me.

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father: let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter.

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end.

[Exit PANDARUS. An Alarum.

Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;

It is too starv'd a subject for my sword,

But Pandarus- O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid, but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo,
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium, and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar,
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

Alarum. Enter NEAS.

Ene. How now, prince Troilus? wherefore not afield? Tro. Because not there: this woman's answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence.

What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?

Ene. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Tro. By whom, Æneas?

Ene.

Troilus, by Menelaus.

Tro. Let Paris bleed: 't is but a scar to scorn;

Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.

Ene. Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day!

[Alarum.

Tro. Better at home, if "would I might," were "may.". are you bound thither?

But to the sport abroad:

Ene. In all swift haste.

Tro.

Ceme; go we, then, together.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The Same. A Street.

Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXander.

Cres. Who were those went by?
Alex.

Cres. And whither go they?

Alex.

Queen Hecuba, and Helen.

Up to the eastern tower,

Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fix'd, to-day was mov'd:

He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose, he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

Cres.

Alex.

What was his cause of anger?

The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;

They call him, Ajax.

Cres.

Good; and what of him?

Alex. They say he is a very man per se,

And stands alone.

Cres. So do all men; unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant; a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it. He is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing; but every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.