The Prologue

The Prologue

In Troy there lyes the Scene: From Iles of Greece
The Princes Orgillous, their high blood chaf’d
Haue to the Port of Athens ſent their ſhippes
Fraught with the miniſters and inſtruments
Of cruell Warre: Sixty and nine that wore
Their Crownets Regall, from th’ Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made
To ranſacke Troy, within whoſe ſtrong emures
The rauiſh’d Helen, Menelaus Queene,
With wanton Paris sleepes, and that’s the Quarrell.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deepe-drawing Barke do there diſgorge
Their warlike frautage: now on Dardan Plaines
The freſh and yet unbruiſed Greekes do pitch
Their braue Pauillions. Priams ſix-gated City,
Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenonidus with maſsie Staples
And correſponſiue and fulfilling Bolts
Stirre up the Sonnes of Troy.
Now Expectation tickling skittiſh ſpirits,
On one and other ſide, Troian and Greeke,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come,
A Prologue arm’d, but not in confidence
Of Authors pen, or Actors voyce, but ſuited
In like conditions, as our Argument,
To tell you (faire Beholders) that our Play
Leapes ore the vaunt and firſtlings of those broyles,
Beginning in the middle. ſtarting thence away,
To what may be digeſted in a Play:
Like, or finde fault, do as your pleaſures are,
Now good, or bad, ’tis but the chance of Warre.