SYNOPSIS

By J. ELLIS BURDICK

ACT I

The Greeks are besieging Troy in an endeavor to restore the beautiful Helen to King Menelaus, her rightful husband. Troilus, son of Priam, king of Troy, is in love with Cressida, and he persuades her uncle Pandarus to intercede for him. A truce exists between the two armies at this time and Hector of Troy sends a challenge to the Greeks, daring any one of their champions to meet him in single combat.

ACT II

The Greeks propose to raise the siege on condition that Helen be returned to them and that a war indemnity be paid them. The Trojans reject the terms. The Grecian generals seek an interview with Achilles, their best warrior, but he refuses to see them, preferring to sulk in his tent. Therefore they are forced to select Ajax to fight with Hector.

ACT III

Pandarus is successful in his intercessions with Cressida in behalf of Troilus. He brings them together, they plight their troth, and resolve to live together. But Cressida's father, who has "incurred a traitor's name," persuades the Greeks to ask for his daughter in exchange for a Trojan leader held prisoner by them. They consent.

ACT IV

Diomedes is commissioned to arrange the exchange and on the morning following her nuptial night, Cressida is taken to the Grecian camp. She parts from Troilus with oft-repeated promises of fidelity. Ajax and Hector meet and fight, but after a few blows they stop on account of kinship. The Greek and Trojan generals exchange courtesies.

ACT V

At the request of Troilus, Ulysses, one of the Greek generals, leads him to Cressida's tent in the Greek encampment. There he sees how faithless she has been to him, for she has transferred her affections to Diomedes. During the battle the next day Troilus and Diomedes fight but without serious injury to either. In this same battle Hector kills Patroclus, an intimate friend of Achilles; the latter is enraged and throwing himself into the fray, he slays Hector and drags his dead body around the battlefield tied to his horse's tail.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

THE 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 quar-
rel.

To Tenedos they come;

10

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 Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, 15. "six-gated city"; Theobald, "six gates i̇ th' city.”—I. G.

16. "Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien," so Ff.; Theobald reads "Thymbria, Ilia, Scæa, Troian"; Capell, "Thymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Troyan."-I. G.

And Antenorides, with massy staples,

And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, 20
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: 30
Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

17. “Antenorides"; Theobald's emendation of Ff. "Antenonidus”: Pope reads "Anteroridas."-I. G.

23. "A prologue arm'd"; i, e. clad in armor instead of in a black cloak, which was the usual garb of the speaker of the Prologue.I. G.

23-25. “not in confidence of author's pen," etc.; not in defiant championship of the merits of the play, but because the argument is of war.-C. H. H.

28. "Beginning in the middle"; Theobald reads "'Ginning ith' middle."—I. G.

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

Troy. Before Priam's palace.

Enter Pandarus and Troilus.

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 skillful 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, 10
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skilless as unpracticed infancy.

Pan. Well, I have told you enough of this: for
my part, I'll not meddle nor make no
farther. He that will have a cake out of
the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
Tro. Have I not tarried?

Pan. Aye, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.