Troilus and Cressida: Act 1, Prologue

tragedy

Scene Summary

An armed Prologue sets the scene in Troy. Sixty-nine crowned Greek princes have sailed from Athens to ransack the city, because the ravished Helen, Menelaus' queen, sleeps with wanton Paris — and that's the quarrel. The play begins in the middle of the war, taking in only what may be digested in a play: like or find fault, 'tis but the chance of war.

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 Tymbria, 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.