Troilus and Cressida

By William Shakespeare.

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Dramatis Personae

Priam, King of Troy
Hector, his son
Troilus, his son
Paris, his son
Deiphobus, his son
Helenus, his son
Margarelon, a bastard son of Priam
Aeneas, Trojan commander
Antenor, Trojan commander
Calchas, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks
Pandarus, uncle to Cressida
Agamemnon, the Grecian general
Menelaus, his brother
Achilles, Grecian Prince
Ajax, Grecian Prince
Ulysses, Grecian Prince
Nestor, Grecian Prince
Diomedes, Grecian Prince
Patroclus, Grecian Prince
Thersites, a deformed and scurrilous Grecian
Alexander, servant to Cressida
Servant to Troilus
Servant to Paris
Servant to Diomedes
Helen, wife to Menelaus
Andromache, wife to Hector
Cassandra, daughter to Priam, a prophetess
Cressida, daughter to Calchas
Trojan and Greek soldiers, and attendants

Scene: Troy, and the Grecian camp before it.

Troilus and Cressida

Prologue

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.

Act I

Scene I

Troy. Before Priam’s palace.

	Enter Troilus armed, and Pandarus.
Troilus	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.
Pandarus	Will this gear ne’er be mended?
Troilus	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.
Pandarus	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.
Troilus	Have I not tarried?
Pandarus	Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.
Troilus	Have I not tarried?
Pandarus	Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening.
Troilus	Still have I tarried.
Pandarus	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.
Troilus	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?
Pandarus	Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.
Troilus	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.
Pandarus	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—