It is printed as prose in the Folios; beginning, 'You must sing downe a-downe, &c.' There is no indication that any part was meant to be sung.
Johnson first printed 'You must sing ... call him a-down-a' in italics, as a snatch of song. Steevens (1778) put 'Down a down, as you call him a-down-a' in italics, a reading suggested by Capell's text, where 'Down' begins with a capital letter. The late Mr John Taylor, in a copy of the second Variorum edition (1813) now in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, has made the following note. "Ophelia gives the song without the Burthen first, and then she instructs them 'You must sing a-down a-down, and you (speaking to another) call him a-down-a."
Note XXIX.
IV. 5. 195. In the Folios Ophelia's song is printed in Italics, and the words 'And ... you' in Roman type, 'God buy ye' being in a separate line. In the second and third Quartos the whole is printed in Roman type, and ends thus:
'God a mercy on his soule, and of all Christians soules,
God buy you.'
We have indicated in the foot-note how the later Quartos differ from the earlier.
Note XXX.
IV. 7. 139. Pope in his second edition says that 'one edition has it, embaited or envenomed.' We have not been able to find this reading in any copy, but Theobald (Shakespeare Restored, p. 119) conjectured 'imbaited.' As this conjecture is not mentioned in his edition, we have here, as in other cases, recorded it as 'withdrawn.'
Note XXXI.
V. 1. 57, 58. Mr Collier in his first edition conjectured that 'Yaughan' might be 'a mis-spelt stage direction to inform the player that he was to yawn at this point.' Mr Staunton says, "Whether by 'Yaughan' a man or place is meant, or whether the word is a corruption, we are not qualified to determine." Mr Grant White says, "I suspect that 'Yaughan' is a misprint for 'Tavern.' But some local allusion understood at the day may lurk under it."