Origin. The remote original is the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid's Metamorphoses, from which an Italian writer named Luigi da Porto made a tale, printed in 1535. A tale formed from this was given by Bandello in 1554; and in 1562 a poem of Romeus and Juliet, by Arthur Brookes, taken from Bandello's, or rather from the version of it in Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques, was published in London; in 1567 the same tale, also from Bandello, appeared in Painter's Palace of Pleasure. Shakespeare chiefly followed Brooke; but he had also read the Palace of Pleasure, and probably Bandello's tale in the original.
Hamlet.
Editions. 4to, 1603; 4to, 1604; 4to, 1611; 4to undated (probably in 1607); in the folio, 1623.
Date. On the 26th of July 1602, an entry was made in the Stationers' Registers of "A Booke, The Revenge of Hamlett, prince of Denmarke, as yt was latelie acted, by the Lord Chambelayn his servantes." There can be little doubt that this was the present play. The text of the 4to, 1603, is in such a mangled, wretched condition, that it has not unreasonably been conjectured that it was formed from notes made during the representation. As in this the Polonius and Reynaldo of the present play are called Corambis and Montano, it is probable that the play received much addition and alteration; for the 4to, 1604, gives it "enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie." This play being so popular, it is not unlikely that the author may have frequently retouched it. It is very remarkable that it is by many degrees the most faulty of his plays, abounding, we may say, in incongruities, contradictions, and improbabilities.
Origin. Apparently a novel called The Hystorie of Hamblet, translated from Belleforest. There seems also to have been an older play on the subject.
Othello.
Editions. 4to, 1622; in the folio, 1623. There is also a 4to, 1630; but it is of little value, as it was evidently made not from a MS., but from the two preceding editions with some conjectural emendations. To the 4to, 1622, is prefixed—as to Troilus and Cressida—an Epistle "from the Stationer [Thos. Walkley] to the Reader."
Date. From the Accounts of the Revels, we learn that this play was performed at Court, November 1st, 1604; and if the Egerton Papers, published by Mr. Collier, can be relied on, it had been performed before Queen Elizabeth. In them we meet as follows:—"6 August, 1602. Rewards to the vaulters, players, and dancers—of this xli to Burbidge's players for Othello—lxiiiili xviiis xd." "The part of the memorandum which relates to Othello," says Mr. Collier, "is interlined as if added afterwards." Mr. Halliwell asserts that Othello must have been written even before 1600; for in a MS. of that date, entitled The Newe Metamorphosis, &c., is a passage evidently, he thinks, imitated from "who steals my purse steals trash" in Othello. But, though Mr. Halliwell thinks otherwise, this passage may have been a later insertion; or it may be a mere coincidence, a thing much more common than is usually supposed. At all events Othello was written, at latest, in 1604. I know not if it has been observed that Voltaire evidently had Othello in his mind when writing his Zaïre.
Origin. The only known source of this play is a tale in the Hecatommithi of Cinthio; and as no English translation of it is known to have existed, the obvious and natural inference is that Shakespeare had read it in the original. There was, however, it seems, a French translation: Paris, 1584.