The acclaimed Pelican Shakespeare series edited by A. R. Braunmuller and Stephen Orgel   The legendary Pelican Shakespeare series features authoritative and meticulously researched texts paired with scholarship by renowned Shakespeareans. Each book includes an essay on the theatrical world of Shakespeare’s time, an introduction to the individual play, and a detailed note on the text used. Updated by general editors Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller, these easy-to-read editions incorporate over thirty years of Shakespeare scholarship undertaken since the original series, edited by Alfred Harbage, appeared between 1956 and 1967. With definitive texts and illuminating essays, the Pelican Shakespeare will remain a valued resource for students, teachers, and theater professionals for many years to come.   For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. “Gorgeous new Shakespeare paperbacks.”  —Marlon James, author of  A Brief History of Seven Killings “I have been using the Pelican Shakespeare for years in my lecture course--it's invaluable, the best individual-volume series available for students.” — Marjorie Garber, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English and Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University   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 died on April 23, 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.  A. R.   Braunmuller  is Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Los Angeles. He has written critical volumes on George Peele and George Chapman and has edited plays in both the Oxford ( King John ) and Cambridge ( Macbeth ) series of Shakespeare editions. He is also general editor of The New Cambridge Shakespeare.  Stephen Orgel  is the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of the Humanities at Stanford University and general editor of the Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture. His books include  Imagining Shakespeare ,  The Authentic Shakespeare ,  Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England  and  The Illusion of Power . 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