The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 7 of 9] - William Shakespeare

PREFACE.

1. The first edition of Romeo and Juliet was published in 1597, with the following title:

After Sig. D, a smaller type is used for the rest of the play, and the running title is changed from 'The most excellent Tragedie, of Romeo and Iuliet' to 'The excellent Tragedie of Romeo and Iuliet.'

The text of this first Quarto differs so widely from that of later and more perfect editions, that it is impossible to record the results of a collation in footnotes: we have therefore reprinted it. When we refer to it in the notes, it is designated as (Q₁), the marks of parenthesis being used as in similar cases previously.

An opinion has been entertained by some critics that in this earliest Quarto we have a fairly accurate version of the play as it was at first written; and that in the interval between the publication of the first and second Quartos, the play was revised and recast by its author into the form in which it appears in the edition of 1599. A careful examination of the earlier text will, we think, prove this notion to be untenable. Not to speak of minor errors, it is impossible that Shakespeare should ever have given to the world a composition containing so many instances of imperfect sense, halting metre, bad grammar, and abrupt dialogue. We believe that the play, as at first written, was substantially the same as that given in the later editions; and that the defects of the first impression are due, not to the author, but to the writer of the manuscript from which that first impression was printed. That manuscript was, in all probability, obtained from notes taken in short-hand during the representation: a practice which we know to have been common in those days. It is true that the text of (Q₁) is more accurate on the whole than might have been expected from such an origin; but the short-hand writer may have been a man of unusual intelligence and skill, and may have been present at many representations in order to correct his work; or possibly some of the players may have helped him either from memory, or by lending their parts in manuscript. But the examples of omission and conjectural insertion are too frequent and too palpable to allow of the supposition that the earliest text is derived from a bona fide transcript of the author's MS. The unusual precision of some stage directions in (Q₁) tends to confirm our view of its origin; a view which is supported by the high authority of M. Tycho Mommsen. The portions of the play omitted in (Q₁), though necessary to its artistic completeness and to its effect as a poem, are for the most part passages which might be spared without disturbing the consecutive and intelligible developement of the action. It is possible therefore that the play as seen by the short-hand writer was curtailed in the representation.

The second Quarto was in all likelihood an edition authorized by Shakespeare and his 'fellows,' and intended to supersede the surreptitious and imperfect edition of 1597. The play so published, we believe, as we have said, to be substantially identical with the play as at first composed; it seems however to have been revised by the author. Here and there a passage appears to have been rewritten. Compare, for example, (Q₁) Sc. 10, lines 11-30 (p. [169] of the reprint) with the corresponding passages of the later editions, Act II. Sc. 6, lines 16-36. In this place assuredly the change must be attributed to the author; but we know of no other passage of equal length where the same can be affirmed with certainty. The words 'newly corrected, augmented, and amended,' found on the title-page of the second Quarto, may be accepted as the statement of a fact, when thus confirmed by internal evidence. Otherwise we know that the assertions in titlepages or prefaces of that time are not to be relied on, nor in this case would the words necessarily mean more than that this second edition was more correct and more complete than the first. In fact, the added matter amounts nearly to a quarter of the whole.

The title-page of the second Quarto, Q₂, is as follows:

This is unquestionably our best authority; nevertheless in determining the text, (Q₁) must in many places be taken into account. For it is certain that Q₂ was not printed from the author's MS., but from a transcript, the writer of which was not only careless, but thought fit to take unwarrantable liberties with the text. In passing through his hands, many passages were thus transmuted from poetry to prose. Pope felt this strongly, too strongly indeed, for he adopted the text of the first Quarto in many places where Capell and all subsequent editors have judiciously recurred to the second. Nevertheless there is no editor who has not felt it necessary occasionally to call in the aid of the first. We think that M. Tycho Mommsen rates the authority of the second Quarto too highly. Any rare form of word or strange construction found in this edition alone, and corrected in all that follow, may more probably be assigned to the transcriber (or in some cases to the printer) than to Shakespeare, whose language is singularly free from archaisms and provincialisms.