University of Virginia Library

A short extract of the History about the destruction of TROY.

Because this confident Essay hath adventur'd to go out, under the silken Banner of Her Highnesse, and being a piece which proceeded from an Authour, in the Originall, whose character it is still to have done right to vertuous Lady's; It may possibly be engag'd (though Naturally Modest) in the Attendance of some of that sex. Now it were indiscretion to think their fair hands can afford to be soyl'd with the dustie records of Time, or impertinent History, further then the Arras can instruct, or then may be understood by one who is well-vers'd in the Ward-robe. Therefore I shall take it for a needfull part of my duty here, to describe briefly the Heads of this Story, so familiarly intimated in the Poem.

The voiage to Troy happened in the MCXCIIII yeare, before the Incarnation of our Saviour, about the time that Fair judg'd Israel. Upon this Quarrell. Paris the sonne of Priam (King of Troy) sail'd over to Peloponnesus, where Menelaus reign'd; having for his Queen Helen the great beauty of her age. Paris lodg'd in the Court of Menelaus, in whose absence he carries away Helen (against the Laws of her Wedlock, and his Hospitality) over to Troy with him. Menelaus returning, demands her, and is repuls'd. Whereupon he invites his Brother Agamemnon, then King of Argos, to assist him in the recovery of

her by arm's. So both the Kings with the other neighbour Princes, levying the whole strength of Greece, fell down towards Aulis an Island in Bœotia; where they entred into confederacie, not to return till either Troy were ras'd, or they perished in the enterprise. But when they should have put out, the Navie lay becalm'd, till according to the answer of the Oracle which they consulted, Agamemnon had sacrific'd his daughter Iphigenia. About xxvii years after this Jephthe sacrificed his daughter: so that some think this of Iphigenia a fiction, and that uncertain tradition huddled up both times together, and that the Ladyes right name was Iphtigenia. This warre lasted ten years, till the prime and ablest Commanders being cut off on both sides, the Victorie fell to the Greeks, whose cause was the juster; Troy being taken by the treachery of Æneas and Antenor, & sack'd, and burnt. Yet it far'd little better with the Conquerours in their return, then it had with the conquered, most of them being weather-beaten, and cast away. As for Agamemnon, he was slain in his own house by wicked Egist, through the complotment of Clytemnestra: which unnaturall treason, Orestes with the assistance of Electra reveng'd: Heaven, as it were, rewarding this affection of Orestes, by length of dayes, and happinesse of Government; for he lived ninetie years, & reigned seventy, match'd with Hermione.

The Tyrannicall usurpation of the Mycenian Kingdome, with the Affliction and Oppression of the Royall Children, and the Destruction of the

Conspiratours, the Enthroning of Orestes, with the Deliverance of the Royall Family, make up this work.

It was written by Sophocles, who was born in the CCCCXCV yeare before the Incarnation of our Saviour, and lived XC years.

So that this Action was performed little lesse then M M M years ago; and represented in this Tragedie somewhat more then M M.

This Abridgement of that famous History, is extracted (for the generality) out of Petavius, a most exact Chronologer, though with some change and addition.