CHRONOLOGY OF THE PLAYS.

I. THE EPOCH OF HIS EARLY WORK, 1591-1593.

Love's Labour's Lost, 1591.
Two Gentlemen of Verona,

1591.
Comedy of Errors, 1592.
Romeo and Juliet, 1592.

Intermediate

Venus and Adonis, 1593.

Henry VI., 1592.
Richard III., 1593.

Richard II., 1593.

Titus Andronicus, 1593.

Epoch of the Poems.
Lucrece, 1594.

II. THE EPOCH OF HIS MATURING ART-THE PERIOD OF THE

GREAT

"COMEDIES" AND THE

The Merchant of Venice,

1594.

King John, 1594. Midsummer-Night's Dream, 1594-1595.

All's Well that Ends Well, 1595.

The Taming of the Shrew, 1595.

66 HISTORIES," 1594-1601.
Henry IV., 1597.

Merry Wives of Windsor,
1598.

Henry V., 1598.

Much Ado about Nothing,
1599.

As You Like It, 1600.

Twelfth Night, 1600.
Julius Cæsar, 1601.

III. THE EPOCH OF HIS MATURE ART-THE PERIOD OF THE

Intermediate Epoch of the Sonnets, 1608-1609.

IV.—THE EPOch of Reposeful ContemplATION, 1610–1611.

Cymbeline, 1610.

The Tempest, 1611.

The Winter's Tale, 1611.

Plays completed by others after his Retirement.

Cardenio, 1611.

Henry VIII., 1612.

Two Noble Kinsmen, 1612.

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 Timbria, 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.

ACT I-SCENE I

Troy. Before Priam's palace.

Enter Pandarus and Troilus.

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 skilless as unpractised 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 needs tarry the grinding.

Tro. Have I not tarried?

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 of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to 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,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile: