Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures The ravished 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 unbruiséd Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions; Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Thymbria, 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. Hither am I come
A prologue arméd, 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; 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 skilless as unpractised infancy.

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

my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further.

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 stormBuried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile, But sorrow that is couched 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 drowned, Reply not in how many fathoms deep

They lie indrenched. 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; illthought on of her, and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small 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.

Tro. Say I, she is not fair?

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.

Tro. Pandarus,

Pan. Not I.

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will

leave all as I found it, and there an end.

[Exit PANDARUS. Alarum