Troilus and CressidaShakespeare’s First Folio
Scans: Bodleian Libraries, Arch. G c.7.
The First Folio
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On the page
Source transcription. Original spelling retained.
Reading Troilus and Cressida
Tragedies · First Folio, 1623
Troilus and Cressida sets desire within the prolonged conflict between Troy and the Greek forces outside it. Lovers and warriors are repeatedly assessed by other people, and their value shifts with the situation in which they are discussed. The play's arguments about honour can therefore be read beside its arguments about constancy. Neither term remains secure simply because a speaker invokes it. In the Folio, attend to the prologue, the movement between camps, and the scenes in which characters watch one another. Reputation becomes something produced through observation, retelling, and interested comparison.
The Prologue locates the action in an ongoing war rather than at its beginning. It describes the arrival of the Greek forces and the fortified city of Troy before turning toward the play's selected moment. That framing helps distinguish the story performed here from the larger history its audience may know.
Context: Troilus and Cressida at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Scans and transcription: Bodleian Libraries, Arch. G c.7.
On the opening page
The Prologue. IN Troy there lyes the Scene; From Iles of Greece The Princes Origillous, 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 vnbruised 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 vp the Sonnes of Troy. Now Expectaton 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.
An opening excerpt from the Bodleian transcription, with original spelling retained. Continue in the reader. Text CC BY 3.0.