Ghosts of those murdered by Richard III., Lords and other Attendants; a Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messengers, Soldiers, etc.

SCENE: England.

DURATION OF TIME

Dramatic Time. -The events actually represented cover eleven days; the whole dramatic time, allowing for necessary intervals, is approximately one month (Daniel: Time Analysis,' Trans. N. Sh. Soc. 1877-79).

Historic Time.-The historic period covered by the action is from the obsequies of Henry VI. (May 23, 1471) to the battle of Bosworth (August 22, 1485).

INTRODUCTION

RICHARD III., from the first one of the most popular Editions. plays of Shakespeare, was first printed, in Quarto, in 1597 under the title:

The Tragedy of | King Richard the third | Containing, His treacherous Plots against his brother. Clarence: the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes his tyrannicall usurpation: with the whole course of his detested life, and most deserved death. As it has been lately Acted by the Right honourable the Lord Chamber laine his servants. AT LONDON Printed by Valentine Sims, for Andrew Wise, dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the Sign of the Angell. 1597.

Seven other Quarto editions followed, in 1598, 1602, 1605, 1612, 1622, 1629, 1634, each apparently printed from its immediate predecessor, except that the Quarto of 1612 was printed from that of 1602. All seven, moreover, contained the name of Shakespeare on the title-page. In the interval between the sixth and seventh Quarto appeared the first Folio edition of the entire works. The title of the play here runs:

The Tragedie of Richard the Third: with the landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell at Bosworth Field.

The text of the other three Folios is substantially

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identical with that of the first. On the other hand, the text of the first diverges widely from that of all the Quartos, and the divergence is of so complicated a kind that the determination of the relationship and authority of the two texts is one of the most serious enigmas of Shakespearean criticism.

The unquestioned facts are as follows:

1. The Quarto text (called here Q) contains thirtytwo lines not found in the Folio (here called F);1 F, on the other hand, contains about 200 lines not found in Q.2 Nearly all these lines, both in Q and F, are clearly genuine.

2. Where the matter substantially corresponds, Q is frequently briefer in expression, less regular in grammar, style, metre, and punctuation; the stage directions are curter, and the dramatic machinery, here and there, simpler-e.g. Catesby superintends the execution of Hastings instead of Ratcliff and Lovel, while Surrey, who speaks a line in v. 1. 3 (F), has no part whatever in Q. But the brevity of Q is not seldom more forcible than the regularity of F.

3. Apart from these differences, the two texts show hundreds of slight variations for which no clear ground can be given.

Neither Q nor F thenceforth can claim to be exclusively Shakespeare's work, as regards at least the passages found in each alone. But the variations are sufficiently ambiguous to permit a good case to be made out for the decided superiority of either.

1 The most important of these are: i. 3. 114 4. 115-7, 137, 195, 243 . 2. 84-5, iii. 7. 220; iv. 2. 102119; v. 3. 204-6.

2 These are: i. 2. 16, 25, 155167; 3. 116, 167-9; 4. 36, 37, 6972, 115-6, 222, 266-9, 273, 275;

ii. 1. 67; 2. 89-100, 123-140; ii. 1. 172-4; 3. 7, 8, 15:4 104-7 5. 7, 103-5; 7. 5. 6. 37, 98-9, 120, 127, 144-53, 202, 245; iv. 1. 2-6, 37, 98-104; 4. 20-1, 28, 32, 53, 103. 159. 172, 179, 221-34, 276-7, 288342, 400; v. 3. 27-8, 43

The extremer partisans of the Quarto (e.g. Mr. Gregory Foster) believe Q to represent Shakespeare's first draft, revised and compressed by himself, F the same draft edited and elaborated by another. The extremer partisans of the Folio (e.g. Delius,1 Spedding,2 Daniel 3) regard Q as a more or less mutilated version of Shakespeare's work which F represents either in its original form (Delius) or after a revision by Shakespeare's own hand (Spedding). Mr. Daniel (in his Facsimile Reprint of Q1) thinks that F represents the authentic theatrical text in use in 1623, the recent Quarto of 1622 being corrected for the press from it.

Neither of these extreme views seems quite adequate to the complexity of the facts. In both texts much must be allowed for mere blundering and carelessness; but it hardly admits of doubt that when we have removed this outer crust from Q1 we get at work Shakespearean so far as it goes; when we have removed it from F we get at work which retains more of Shakespeare's material in a less purely Shakespearean form. When a play could remain for twenty-five years in the repertory of the company, a stage tradition inevitably grew up uncontrolled by the published texts. It is likely enough that Shakespeare himself contributed to this traditional version by alterations in his own text. But it is quite certain also that much more was contributed by some hand other than his, probably after his retirement and. without his concurrence. This editor may have independently emended, or he may simply have recorded changes long established in stage tradition. The ideal aim, then, of the modern editor must be to detect and eliminate the work of both

1 Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare Gesellschaft, Bd.

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2 New Shakspere Transactions, 1875-6. 3 Facsimile Reprint of Q1

kinds done by this ancient editor upon Shakespeare's original or revised draft. Since, however, both the original draft and the extent of Shakespeare's revision are unknown, these sources of corruption can be certainly detected only in a minimum of cases. Hence the Cambridge editors adopted, as a pis aller, the practical alternative of substituting in doubtful cases the reading of Q, freed from mere blunders, for that of F; properly preferring the risk of excluding Shakespeare's final touches to that of including those of a hand not his at all.

The chief characteristics of the editor seem to be as follows:

1. He modernises. Hence certain phrases and usages in Q, familiar to Shakespeare elsewhere, are replaced by others which had become more current in the second decade of the seventeenth century. Thus which is often changed to that, betwixt to between, moe to more.

2. He regulates. (a) metre.

He dislikes half-lines and long lines: e.g. iii. 4. 10-12 (in reply to Ely's 'Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind' Q has:

Buck. Who, I, my lord? we know each other's faces, But for our hearts, he knows no more of mine

Than I of yours;

F:

Nor I no more of his than you of mine.

We know each other's faces; for our hearts,

He knows no more of mine, than I of yours;

Nor I of his, my lord, than you of mine.'

In iii. 5. 108 he even sacrifices a modern phrase for metrical regularity:

1 Similar regulations of metre are particularly obvious in the

following lines, among others, i. 1. 75 (F1 was, for her).