The [stage direction] of the early Quartos is: Enter Sir Hugh like a Satyre, and boyes drest like Fayries, Mistresse Quickly, like the Queene of Fayries; they sing a song about him and afterward speake.
The Folio enumerates at the commencement of the scene all who take part in it, including Anne Page, Fairies, Quickly and Pistol, and in this place has merely Enter Fairies. Malone introduced Anne Page as the Fairy Queen, and at the end, with waxen tapers on their heads. He however still assigned the speeches 35-39, 53-74, 82-85, and 88-90 to Quickly. Recent Editors have generally given them to Anne, on the ground that it is proved by [IV. 6. 20] and [V. 3. 11, 12], that she was to ‘present the Fairy Queen,’ and that the character of the speeches is unsuitable to Mrs Quickly. It has been argued, too, that the Qui. of the folios, line 35, may be a misprint for Qu., i.e. Queen. This however is contradicted by the fact that Mrs Quickly plays the Queen in the early Quartos, and that the recurrence of Qui., line 88, proves that the printer of the first Folio used either Qui. or Qu. indifferently as the abbreviation of Quickly.
Most likely, in this and other respects the play was altered by its author, but the stage MSS. were not corrected throughout with sufficient care. This will account for the mistake about the colours ‘green’ and ‘white’ in the final scene, lines 186, 190, 196.
Or we may suppose Mrs Quickly to have agreed to take Anne’s part in order to facilitate her escape with Fenton.
[CRITICAL APPARATUS
(“Linenotes”).]
Act I: Scene 1
[6.] Custalorum] Custos Farmer conj.
[7.] Rato-lorum] Ff. Rotulorum Q3.
[10.] I] We Steevens (Farmer conj.).