Note IX.
III. 3. 40-43. The Quarto of 1599 reads as follows:
'This may flyes do, when I from this must flie,
And sayest thou yet, that exile is not death?
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
Flies may do this, but I from this must flie:
They are freemen, but I am banished.'
The same order is followed in the subsequent Quartos. The reading of the first Quarto will be seen in the reprint which follows the play. The first Folio gives:
'This may Flies doe, when I from this must flie,
And saist thou yet, that exile is not death?
But Romeo may not, hee is banished.'
This reading is followed by the other Folios, Rowe, Theobald, Warburton, and Johnson. Hanmer follows Pope in his text (see Note VIII), omitting altogether the lines which Pope put in the margin.
Capell has:
'Flies may do this, but I from this must fly;
They are free men, but I am banished.'
Steevens (1773) reads:
'Flies may do this, when I from this must fly;
They are free men, but I am banished.
And say'st thou yet, that exile is not death?
But Romeo may not;—he is banished.'
In his note on the passage, in the edition of 1778, he conjectured that the line 'But Romeo ... banished' should be inserted after 'their own kisses sin;' an arrangement which was adopted by Malone and by Steevens himself in his edition of 1793. Capell suggests that the lines he retains 'were second thoughts of the poet, and their original was meant for expunction.' This may possibly be true, but we have adopted the reading given in our text because it retains, without manifest absurdity, lines which are all undoubtedly Shakespeare's. For a similar instance see Note XVIII. on Love's Labour's Lost.
In IV. I. III, of the present play we have omitted a line which occurs in all the Quartos, except the first, and all the Folios, because it could not be retained without absolute detriment to the sense.