Chapter: PROLOGUE
                        PROLOGUE

    In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
    The princes orgillous, 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
    Their crownets regal from th' 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 war-like 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, Troyan 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.

 The Prologue is an armored soldier, who places the action in the Trojan War and tells the reader/audience of the context of the 2play. Here, the audience learns of the 69 Greek princes, who have sent ships laden with ministers and instruments of War to recapture Helen wife of Greek king Menelaus who has run away with Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy. The Prologue who speaks directly to the audience draws a picture of the Greeks pitching their encampments on the Dardan Plains outside the strong six- gated city of Troy. He places his arrival squarely at the point where the mood of the warriors on both sides has grown spirited, strikes a personal note with the audience and informs them that the action steps over the beginnings of the Trojan War. He goes straight to the more easily dramatized events.

