Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 0
Prologue.
Chorus : In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
[p]The princes
orgulous, their high blood chafed,
[p]Have to the port of Athens sent
their ships,
[p]Fraught with the ministers and instruments
[p]Of cruel
war: sixty and nine, that wore
[p]Their crownets regal, from the
Athenian bay
[p]Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
[p]To
ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
[p]The ravish'd Helen,
Menelaus' queen,
[p]With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the
quarrel.
[p]To Tenedos they come;
[p]And the deep-drawing barks do
there disgorge
[p]Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan
plains
[p]The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
[p]Their brave
pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
[p]Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias,
Chetas, Troien,
[p]And Antenorides, with massy staples
[p]And
corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
[p]Sperr up the sons of
Troy.
[p]Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
[p]On one and
other side, Trojan and Greek,
[p]Sets all on hazard: and hither am I
come
[p]A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
[p]Of author's pen or
actor's voice, but suited
[p]In like conditions as our argument,
[p]To
tell you, fair beholders, that our play
[p]Leaps o'er the vaunt and
firstlings of those broils,
[p]Beginning in the middle, starting
thence away
[p]To what may be digested in a play.
[p]Like or find
fault; do as your pleasures are:
[p]Now good or bad, 'tis but the
chance of war.
Next: Act 1 - Scene 1
