Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare (Illustrated)

By William Shakespeare

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Troilus and Cressida’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Shakespeare includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘Troilus and Cressida’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Shakespeare’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786562920

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (April 26, 1564 (baptised) - April 23, 1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the Bard of Avon. His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

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The Complete Works of

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

VOLUME 24 OF 74

Troilus and Cressida

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2012

Version 6

COPYRIGHT

‘Troilus and Cressida’

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition (in 74 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 292 0

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

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www.delphiclassics.com

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 24 of the Delphi Classics edition of William Shakespeare in 74 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Troilus and Cressida from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of William Shakespeare, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of William Shakespeare or the Complete Works of William Shakespeare in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

IN 74 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Plays

1, Henry  VI, Part 2

2, Henry  VI, Part 3

3, Henry  VI, Part 1

4, Richard  III

5, The Comedy of Errors

6, Titus Andronicus

7, Taming of the Shrew

8, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

9, Love’s Labour’s Lost

10, Romeo and Juliet

11, Richard II

12, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

13, King John

14, The Merchant of Venice

15, Henry IV, Part I

16, Henry IV, Part II

17, Much Ado About Nothing

18, Henry V

19, Julius Caesar

20, As You Like It

21, Twelfth Night

22, Hamlet

23, The Merry Wives of Windsor

24, Troilus and Cressida

25, All’s Well that Ends Well

26, Measure for Measure

27, Othello

28, King Lear

29, Macbeth

30, Antony and Cleopatra

31, Coriolanus

32, Timon of Athens

33, Pericles

34, Cymbeline

35, The Winter’s Tale

36, The Tempest

37, Henry  VIII

38, The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Lost Plays

39, The Lost Plays

The Sources

40, The Plays’ Sources

The Apocryphal Plays

41, Arden of Faversham

42, The Birth of Merlin

43, King Edward  III

44, Locrine

45, The London Prodigal

46, The Puritan

47, The Second Maiden’s Tragedy

48, Sir John Oldcastle

49, Thomas Lord Cromwell

50, A Yorkshire Tragedy

51, Sir Thomas More

52, Fair Em

53, Mucedorus

54, The Merry Devil of Edmonton

55, Edmund Ironside

56, Thomas of Woodstock

57, Vortigern and Rowena

The Adaptations

58, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

The Poetry

59, The Sonnets

60, Venus and Adonis

61, The Rape of Lucrece

62, The Passionate Pilgrim

63, The Phoenix and the Turtle

64, A Lover’s Complaint

The Apocryphal Poetry

65, To the Queen

66, A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter

67, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music

The Criticism

68, The Criticism

The Biographies

69, Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear by Nicholas Rowe

70, Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters by Henry Norman Hudson

71, Life of William Shakespeare by Sir Sidney Lee

72, Shakespeare’s Lost Years in London by Arthur Acheson

73, The People for Whom Shakespeare Wrote by Charles Dudley Warner

Resources

74, Resources

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Troilus and Cressida

This tragedy is believed to have been written in 1602.  Throughout the play, the tone alternates between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom, proving problematic for the audience to respond to the characters.   For many critics, Troilus and Cressida is the most ambiguous of Shakespeare’s plays, appearing on one level a simple narration of stories based on the Greek myths of Troy, while on another level, it offers a parody of Elizabethan society, with subtle undertones probing public morality of the time.  The original source of the play is Chaucer’s famous poem, which deals with the tragic love, betrayal and deaths of Troilus and Criseyde.

Shakespeare’s main source text for this play is available via this link.

The 1609 Quarto title page

CONTENTS

Dramatis Personæ

Prologue.

Act I. Scene I.

Act I. Scene II.

Act I. Scene III.

Act II. Scene I.

Act II. Scene II.

Act II. Scene III.

Act III. Scene I.

Act III. Scene II.

Act III. Scene III.

Act IV. Scene I.

Act IV. Scene II.

Act IV. Scene III.

Act IV. Scene IV.

Act IV. Scene V.

Act V. Scene I.

Act V. Scene II.

Act V. Scene III.

Act V. Scene IV.

Act V. Scene V.

Act V. Scene VI.

Act V. Scene VII.

Act V. Scene VIII.

Act V. Scene IX.

Act V. Scene X.

Matthew Kelly as Pandarus in a recent Globe production of the play

Dramatis Personæ

PRIAM, King of Troy.

HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, & HELENUS: his Sons.

MARGARELON, a Bastard Son of Priam.

ÆNEAS & ANTENOR, Trojan Commanders.

CALCHAS, a Trojan Priest, taking part with the Greeks.

PANDARUS, Uncle to Cressida.

AGAMEMNON, the Grecian General.

MENELAUS, his Brother.

ACHILLES, AJAX, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, & PATROCLUS: Grecian Commanders.

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.

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   5

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.   10

To Tenedos they come,

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge

Their war-like fraughtage: now on Dardan plains

The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch

Their brave pavilions: Priam’s six-gated city,   15

Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan,

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,   25

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.

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?   5

Each Trojan that is master of his heart,

Let him to field; Troilus, alas! has 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;   10

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 tarry the grinding.   15

Tro.  Have I not tarried?

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

Tro.  Have I not tarried?

Pan.  Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

Tro.  Still have I tarried.   20

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, —   25

So, traitor! ‘when she comes’! — When is she thence?

Pan.  Well, she