One thing you’d better get out of your mind at the start is all this nonsense about the Trojan horse and the fall of Troy. The Trojan war has been going on for the last three thousand years and it hasn’t stopped yet. All the stories you’ve heard about the destruction of Troy are just daydreams Ulysses invented to keep himself sane. You’ve probably dreamed like that yourselves, waiting for a war to come to an end. [Slightly embarrassed.] One thing, though—the people in the play don’t seem to know how long the war has lasted. They have the idea that it’s only been going on for nine years or so. I don’t know why. Human beings don’t have a very good time-sense.
Zeus, in the Prologue to Jack Spicer’s Troilus.
