PROLOGUE.

IN Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd,
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 th' 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 unbruisèd 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,

(1) Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenorides,]

leave these names as they stand in the folio (this Prologue is not in the quarto), except that I have substituted "Antenorides" for "Antenonidus."-According to Dares Phrygius, cap. 4, "Ilio portas fecit [Priamus], quarum nomina hæc sunt, Antenoride, Dardaniæ, Iliæ, Sca, Thymbrææ, Trojanæ [or Antenoria, Dardania, Ilia, Scæa, Thymbræa, Trojana];" and Theobald made the names in the present passage agree with that list. But Shakespeare, we may be sure, did not consult Dares Phrygius.-Caxton, in his prose Recuyell of the historyes of Troye, &c., under the heading "How the kynge Priam reediffied the cyte of troye," writes thus; "In this Cyte were sixe pryncipall gates, of whome that one was named dardane. the seconde tymbria. the thirde helyas. the fourthe chetas. the fifthe troyenne. and the sixthe antenorides." Ed. (which has neither paging nor signatures) circa 1474: see Introd. to this play, p. 2.-Lydgate, in his poem entitled The hystorye, Sege and dystruccyon of Troye, says;

(2)

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 (3) 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.

“The firste of all and strengest eke withall

Was by the kynge called Dardanydes;
And in storye lyke as it is founde,
Tymbria was named the seconde ;
And the thirde called Helyas;

The fourthe gate hyghte also Cetheas;

The fyfte Troiana, the syxth Anthonydes," &c.
B. ii. sig. F 1, ed. 1513.

In the last of these lines ed. 1555 reads

the syxth Antinorydes."

(2) Sperr] So Theobald.-The folio has "Stirre." (In the fourth line above Theobald substituted "Priam's six gates i' th' city," to avoid what he says is "a verb plural governed by a nominative singular;" and Capell, who retains the old reading above, prints here "Sperrs." But the city with the enumeration of its gates was certainly considered by our author as equivalent to a plural nominative.)

(3) starting] Mr. W. N. Lettsom would read "starts."

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

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 unpractis'd 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 tarrried?

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

(5)

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:
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,

(4) "when she comes !"— When is she thence?] Rowe's correction (made partly in his first, partly in his sec. ed.).-The old eds. have "then she comes, when she is thence."

(5) storm-] The old eds. have "scorne."

"In comparison with Cressida's hand, says he, the spirit of sense, the

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.

Let her be as she is:

Tro. Thou dost not speak so much. Pan. Faith, I'll not meddle in't. if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

utmost degree, the most exquisite power of sensibility, which implies a soft hand, since the sense of touching, as [Julius Cæsar] Scaliger says in his Exercitations, resides chiefly in the fingers, is hard as the callous and insensible palm of the ploughman. Warburton reads

It is not proper to make a lover profess to praise his mistress in spite of sense; for though he often does it in spite of the sense of others, his own senses are subdued to his desires." JOHNSON.-Capell prints "in spirit of sense," &c.

1865. Mr. W. N. Lettsom proposes to amend the greater part of this speech as follows;

"thou answer'st, she is fair;

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice
Handlest in thy discourse :-(0 that her hand,

In whose comparison all whites are ink,

Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure

And spirit of sense the cygnet's down is harsh

As the hard palm of ploughman !-) this thou tell'st me,

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

But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm

Pour'd in the open ulcer of my heart,

Thou lav'st in every gash that Love hath given me
The knife that made it."

And he observes; "Three out of these four changes are the property of others [of Grant White, Walker, and Barron Field]. I must express my utter dissent from those critics who take the part which I have put into parenthesis for a quotation from Pandarus. O that her hand' &c., is evidently a lover's burst, and the whole passage is as remote from the low jargon of Pandarus as the sky from a cesspool. The words 'this thou tell'st me' refer to Cressida's eyes, hair, &c., of which Pandarus had been in the habit of talking. This is evident from the close of the speech. The phrase 'every gash' can refer to nothing but an enumeration of various particulars. Spirit of sense' I take to mean here most delicate and ethereal touch. In act iii. sc. 3 the same words are applied to the sight, or rather to the eye, the instrument of sight."

() As Walker (Crit Exam., &c., vol. iii. p. 191) says of this reading "Evidently wrong. And,' I think."