Troilus and Cressida (The RSC Shakespeare - Modern Library Classics) - Softcover

Shakespeare, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812969316 ISBN 13: 9780812969313

Verlag: Modern Library, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Eminent Shakespearean scholars Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen provide a fresh new edition of this classic tragedy of politics and war, honor and love—along with more than a hundred pages of exclusive features, including:
 
• an original Introduction to Troilus and Cressida
• incisive scene-by-scene synopsis and analysis with vital facts about the work
• commentary on past and current productions based on interviews with leading directors, actors, and designers
• photographs of key RSC productions
• an overview of Shakespeare’s theatrical career and chronology of his plays
 
Ideal for students, theater professionals, and general readers, these modern and accessible editions from the Royal Shakespeare Company set a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King’s New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers.” Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (later under James I, called the King’ s Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Prologue

[Enter the Prologue, in armour]

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 th'Athenian bay

Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made

To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures

The ravished 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 warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains

The fresh and yet unbruisèd 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,

Stir up the sons of Troy.

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,

On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,

Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come,

A prologue armed, 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. [Exit]

Act 1 Scene 1 running scene 1

Enter Pandarus and Troilus

TROILUS 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.

PANDARUS Will this gear ne'er be mended?

TROILUS The Greeks are strong and skilful 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,

Less valiant than the virgin in the night,

And skilless as unpractised infancy.

PANDARUS 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 needs tarry the grinding.

TROILUS Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS Ay, the grinding, but you must tarry the bolting.

TROILUS Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leav'ning.

TROILUS Still have I tarried.

PANDARUS 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.

TROILUS Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,

Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.

At Priam's royal table do I sit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts -

So, traitor, when she comes? When is she thence?

PANDARUS Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

TROILUS I was about to tell thee - when my heart,

As wedgèd with a sigh, would rive in twain,

Lest Hector or my father should perceive me -

I have, as when the sun doth light a-scorn,

Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:

But sorrow, that is couched in seeming gladness

Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

PANDARUS An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's - well, go to - there were no more comparison between the women. But, for my part, she is my kinswoman: I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but-

TROILUS O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus -

When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drowned,

Reply not in how many fathoms deep

They lie indrenched. I tell thee I am mad

In Cressid's love. Thou answer'st she is fair,

Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,

Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand

In whose comparison all whites are ink

Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure

The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense

Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me -

As true thou tell'st me - when I say I love her,

But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me

The knife that made it.

PANDARUS I speak no more than truth.

TROILUS Thou dost not speak so much.

PANDARUS Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her: an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

TROILUS Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus?

PANDARUS I have had my labour for my travail: ill-thought on of her and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

TROILUS What, art thou angry, Pandarus? What, with me?

PANDARUS Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a blackamoor: 'tis all one to me.

TROILUS Say I she is not fair?

PANDARUS I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father: let her to the Greeks, and so I'll tell her the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i'th'matter.

TROILUS Pandarus-

PANDARUS Not I.

TROILUS Sweet Pandarus-

PANDARUS Pray you speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. Exit Pandarus

Sound alarum

TROILUS Peace, you ungracious clamours, peace, rude sounds!

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair

When with your blood you daily paint her thus.

I cannot fight upon this argument:

It is too starved a subject for my sword.

But Pandarus - O gods, how do you plague me!

I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar,

And he's as tetchy to be wooed to woo

As she is stubborn, chaste, against all suit.

Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,

What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?

Her bed is India: there she lies, a pearl.

Between our Ilium and where she resides,

Let it be called the wild and wand'ring flood,

Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar

Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.

Alarum. Enter Aeneas

AENEAS How now, Prince Troilus? Wherefore not afield?

TROILUS Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,

For womanish it is to be from thence.

What news, Aeneas, from the field today?

AENEAS That Paris is returnèd home and hurt.

TROILUS By whom, Aeneas?

AENEAS Troilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUS Let Paris bleed, 'tis but a scar to scorn:

Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn. Alarum

AENEAS Hark, what good sport is out of town today!

TROILUS Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may'.

But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?

AENEAS In all swift haste.

TROILUS Come, go we then together. Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2] running scene 2

Enter Cressida and her Man [Alexander]

CRESSIDA Who were those went by?

ALEXANDER Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA And whither go they?

ALEXANDER Up to the eastern tower,

Whose height commands as subject all the vale,

To see the battle. Hector, whose patience

Is as a virtue fixed, today was moved:

He chides Andromache and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Modern Library
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0812969316
• ISBN 13: 9780812969313
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 219
• Herausgeber: Bate Jonathan, Rasmussen Eric
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland