The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 5 of 9]

NOTE I.

The first and second Folios give the title of this play as follows: ‘The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell at Bosworth Field.’ The third and fourth Folios give the same except that for ‘Earle Richmond,’ they have ‘the Earl of Richmond.’ The running title in all is: ‘The Life and Death of Richard the Third.’

The Acts and Scenes are marked throughout in the Folios, but not in the Quartos.

NOTE II.

I. 1. 98–100. Pope reconstructed the whole passage thus:

Steevens rejecting the word ‘alone,’ as an interpolation would arrange the last and the following lines thus:

Capell also had omitted ‘alone,’ but made an Alexandrine by continuing the line to ‘my lord.’

NOTE III.

I. 3. 16. Theobald substitutes ‘Stanley’ for ‘Derby’ throughout, observing, ‘This is a blunder of inadvertence, which has run thro’ the whole chain of impressions. It could not well be original in Shakespeare, who was most minutely acquainted with his history and the intermarriages of the nobility...Thomas Lord Stanley was not created Earl of Derby till after the accession of that prince (i.e. Henry VII.); and, accordingly, afterwards in the fourth and fifth Acts of this play, before the battel of Bosworth-field, he is every where call’d Lord Stanley. This sufficiently justifies the change I have made in his title.’

This statement is not quite correct. He is called ‘Derby’ (the word being, of course, variously spelt) throughout the first and second Acts. He is called ‘Lord Stanley’ for the first time in Act III. Scene 2. In Act III. Scene 4 he is called ‘Derby’ in the stage directions and ‘Stanley’ in the text. He is ‘Stanley’ in Act IV. Scene 1. In Act IV. Scenes 2 and 3, we find in the Folio ‘Stanley’ both in the stage directions and the text. In the Quarto it is ‘Derby,’ in the stage directions, the name not occurring in the text. In Act IV. Scene 4, he is called ‘Derby’ in the stage directions. In Act V. Scene 2, Richmond speaks of him as ‘my father Stanley,’ and in the next scene he is called ‘Derby’ in the stage directions, and ‘Stanley’ in the text.

The error must have been due to the author, who would not have written ‘my lord of Stanley,’ and therefore we have retained ‘Derby’ wherever both Quarto and Folio agree in reading it. ‘An editor,’ says Mr Grant White, ‘is not justifiable in substituting what his author should have written for what he did write.’

NOTE IV.

I. 3. 322. In Capell’s copy of the seventh Quarto an old MS. corrector has converted ‘we come’ into ‘welcome.’

NOTE V.

I. 4. 75. After this line which is assigned to ‘Keep.’ like the foregoing lines, the Folios insert the stage direction, ‘Enter Brackenbury the Lieutenant,’ and then prefix ‘Bra.’ to the next line, as if Brackenbury and the keeper had been two different persons, instead of being identical as they are in the Quartos. Pope restored the reading of the Quartos. Mr Grant White defends the stage directions of the Folios thus: ‘It was a violation of all propriety to make Sir Robert Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower, go about with a bunch of ponderous keys at his girdle or in his hand. These keys were evidently carried by the keeper, a higher sort of gaoler, but a person of rank much inferior to that of Brakenbury, the commander of the Tower. The stage direction and the prefixes of the quarto are probably the result of the limited number of actors in Shakespeare’s company when the play was first produced, which caused the easily merged parts of the Keeper and Brakenbury to be assigned to one performer.’

But Clarence was no common prisoner, and there would be no degradation in Brakenbury’s acting in person as keeper to a prince of the blood, at a time when even menial offices were rendered by gentlemen of good birth not only to royal personages but also to others. We may observe—though this is of little weight—that the corrector has omitted to provide for the exit of the Keeper.

On the whole we have decided to adhere to the Quartos, as they undoubtedly give what Shakespeare originally wrote, and the alteration found in the Folios is not of such obvious propriety that we should unhesitatingly attribute it to the hand of the author.

NOTE VI.

I. 4. 110. The speeches in this part of the scene, which are obviously prose, are printed in the Quartos and Folios as lines of verse of various lengths.

NOTE VII.

I. 4. 255–264. This passage, including the lines immed­iate­ly preceding, stands thus in the first Quarto, which is followed by the rest, substantially:

It is thus amplified in the Folios:

Pope adopted the reading of the Quartos, rejecting the last line ‘a begging...not?’ He was followed by Hanmer and Capell. Theobald followed the Folios, reading for life? Ah! you...distress. Johnson, who gives in his text the arrangement which Warburton had borrowed from Theobald, says, in a note: ‘I cannot but suspect that the lines, which Mr Pope observed not to be in the old edition, are now misplaced, and should be inserted here, somewhat after this manner.

Upon this provocation the villain naturally strikes him.’

The arrangement which we have adopted was first suggested by Tyrwhitt and introduced into the text by Steevens, 1793. It involves a rather violent transposition, but we see no better remedy. As the lines omitted in the Quarto have all the appearance of being Shakespeare’s own, we cannot leave them out of the text. We think, however, that they are out of their right place in the Folio, and that the transposition suggested by Johnson does not yield a satisfactory sense.

Mr Grant White says: ‘Mr Knight, Mr Collier, Mr Verplanck, and Mr Hudson follow the Folio; the last only attaining a tolerable sense, by supposing Clarence’s question, as it appears in the folio, to end at “would not intreat for life,” and the Murderer to interrupt him in the beginning of a new sentence, thus:—

presuming, I suppose, the Duke to be about to say, ‘As you would beg, &c., so I beg,’ &c. I am unable to look so far into Clarence’s intentions as to decide upon the merits of this reading.’

The punctuation proposed by Mr Hudson had suggested itself independently to Mr Spedding. The chief objection however to the reading of the Folio still remains, viz. the awkwardness of the murderer’s taking up Clarence’s word ‘Relent’ after so long an interval. If, as we suppose, Shakespeare wrote those additional lines in the margin of his original MS., nothing is more likely than that a copyist should have misplaced them. In IV. 3, 52, 53, two lines undoubtedly added by Shakespeare are thus misplaced in the Folio:

Similarly in Act II. Scene 1, the line

which the corrector intended to follow 66, is placed in the Folio after 67. We have not introduced this line into the text, because Shakespeare would not have introduced it after line 66 as it stands in the Quarto, nor have altered that line as it is altered in the Folio.

See also IV. 4, 100–104, where, in correcting one mistake of transposition, another has been made.

See also Note (XIX).

Mr Collier in his second edition, following in other respects the Folio, inserts three words suggested by his old MS. corrector, thus:

Mr Knight’s arrangement (ed. 1839), in which he says he has followed ‘the Folio, instead of adopting the arbitrary regulations of the modern editors,’ is this:

Here perhaps the printer has mistaken Mr Knight’s marginal directions. If such an error can escape the notice of so careful an editor, how likely is it to occur in the Folio which could hardly be said to have an editor at all!

NOTE VIII.

II. 3. 12. Johnson supposed that a line had been lost between lines 12 and 13 after ‘government.’ Malone conjectured that one had been lost after ‘council under him,’ line 13.

NOTE IX.

II. 4. 1, 2. The Quarto here reads:

The Folio:

Pope:

Capell:

The correction found in the Folio was probably made, as Malone says, simply for the sake of the metre. The Folio reading accidentally coincides with the statement of Hall’s Chronicle, but (what is of more consequence) it is inconsistent with the next line of the Archbishop’s speech.

NOTE X.

II. 4. 37. We have followed the Folios in reading ‘Enter a Messenger’ and in assigning the speeches that follow to him rather than to the Marquess Dorset as is the case in the Quartos. The change must have been deliberate, and as the Queen does not greet the person who brings the intelligence, and expresses no anxiety for his safety when she herself is going to sanctuary, it seems more proper that the messenger should be one of inferior rank than one so nearly connected with the Queen. His ignorance of the cause of the arrest of the nobles and the terms in which he speaks of them are in keeping with the character of a messenger. In Act IV. Scene 1, the Queen, apparently, meets Dorset for the first time since Richard’s designs were disclosed, and passionately urges his escape.

NOTE XI.

III. 1. 169, &c. The reading of the first Quarto is:

NOTE XII.

III. 2. 91–93. In the first Quarto the passage reads thus:

The reading of the Folios, which we have retained, is not satisfactory, and looks like an attempt of the editors to amend the defective metre of the Quartos. The scene opens at four in the morning, and yet Stanley is made to say, ‘the day is spent.’

NOTE XIII.

III. 4. 5. We retain here the reading in which both the earliest Quartos and the Folios agree. It doubtless came from the pen of the author, and is after all a pardonable inaccuracy, such as may easily escape from the pen of a rapid writer or the tongue of a ready talker.

NOTE XIV.

III. 4. 10–13. We keep the reading of the Quartos but have made a change in the arrangement of the lines. This is the text of the Quartos:

The Folio reads:

Pope follows the Folios, but reads ‘Nor’ for ‘Or’ in the last line.

NOTE XV.

III. 4. 78–80. The first Folio reads:

The first Quarto has:

Theobald altered Ratcliffe to Catesby, observing in his note, ‘The scene is here in the Tower: and Lord Hastings was cut off on that very day, when Rivers, Gray and Vaughan suffered at Pomfret. How then could Ratcliff at the same instant be both in Yorkshire and the Tower? In the very scene preceding this we find him conducting those gentlemen to the block. The players in their edition first made the blunder, as to Ratcliff attending Lord Hastings to death: for, in the old Quarto, we find it rightly;—Exeunt: Manet Catesby with Hastings.’ But in the next scene Theobald, while he makes Lovell and Catesby bring in the head of Hastings, allows Gloucester, just before their entrance, to say, ‘Catesby, o’erlook the walls.’ Hanmer corrected this inconsistency by reading, ‘Some one o’erlook the walls.’ We have followed the Folios, for the difficulties could not be removed entirely without applying more violence to the text than an editor is justified in using.

NOTE XVI.

III. 5. 10–21. In the first Quarto this passage stands as follows:

In the last line Q₃ has G, O, be quiet, &c. Instead of lines 12–14, But what......Lord mayor, Theobald read with the Quartos.

NOTE XVII.

IV. 1. 92–94. In the second Folio there is a curious mistake here. In the margin of the first Folio, from which the second was printed, some one had inserted the stage directions, ‘to Dorset,’ ‘to Anne,’ ‘to the Queene,’ which the printer mistook and gave as part of the text thus:

The error is repeated in the third Folio and, strange to say, corrected in the fourth, where the stage directions are inserted in their proper places. It also inserts the word ‘thou,’ which had been omitted in the second and third Folios.

NOTE XVIII.

IV. 2. 47 sqq. In this passage we have followed substantially the reading of the Quartos in preference to that of the Folios.

The first Quarto reads:

In the seventh and eighth Quartos the second line of Darby’s speech is divided ‘...seas where he abides.’

The first Folio has:

Pope follows the Folios and Rowe, except that for ‘Know, my loving Lord,’ he substitutes ‘my lord,’ ending the next line at fled. Steevens retains the reading of the Folios, but in other respects adopts Pope’s arrangement, assigning it, more suo, to Sir Thomas Hanmer.

Mr Staunton follows Steevens as regards Stanley’s speech, and then reads with the Quartos. In the preceding line he reads with the Quartos: ‘How now what news with you?’

Mr Collier suspects that ‘What’s the news?’ in line 46, is an interpolation and that the true reading is,

NOTE XIX.

IV. 4, 365, 366. The first Quarto alone preserves the proper order of the lines here. Its words are:

The second Quarto omits the first line and gives the second to the King, thus:

The third follows the second in omitting the first line, but it continues the second to the Queen. All the remaining Quartos read with the third.

The Folios give both lines, but in reverse order, thus:

NOTE XX.

IV. 4. 444. We have here followed the reading of the Quartos, in preference to that of the Folios, in which the passage stands as follows:

This seems to show that the text of the Quartos has been amended in the Folios by no very skilful hand. Rowe endeavoured to amend the passage by reading in the last line ‘Ratcliff, come hither,’ and in this has been followed by most succeeding editors.

NOTE XXI.

IV. 4. 512–517. The Quartos here read:

By substituting ‘’Tis’ for ‘My newes is’ in the second line, and ‘Buckingham’s’ for ‘The Duke of Buckinghams’ in the third, the reading of the Quartos might be retained.

NOTE XXII.

IV. 5. 6–20. We have followed the Quartos in the arrangement of the lines of this scene. The Folios insert after line 5:

And in Derby’s last speech they read:

Pope follows the Folios, except that for ‘Withall say, that’ he reads ‘Say too.’ Capell adopts the arrangement of the Quartos, but reads, ‘Well, hie thee to thy lord’ instead of ‘Return unto thy lord.’

NOTE XXIII.

V. 3. 23–26. In the Quartos these lines are omitted in the present speech of Richmond, but inserted a few lines lower down, as will be seen from the following quotation from the first Quarto:

As the Quartos omit entirely lines 27, 28 and 43, we have followed the arrangement of the Folios.

NOTE XXIV.

V. 3. 145. In the first and second Quartos the Ghosts of the two young Princes enter and speak before the Ghost of Hastings. The Folios and the other Quartos make the Ghost of Hastings enter first. As a chronological order is observed in the appearance of the other Ghosts we have thought it best in this case to follow the latter authorities.

This discrepancy between the two earliest editions and the rest seems to have escaped the notice of Capell and of all other editors.

NOTE XXV.

V. 3. 179. Warburton says: The players, among their other innumerable absurdities, in the representation of this tragedy, make Richard say instead of ‘O coward conscience,’ ‘O tyrant conscience!’

He refers to Colley Cibber’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play: ‘The Tragical History of King Richard III. Altered from Shakespear. By Colley Cibber Esq.’

NOTE XXVI.

V. 3. 204–206. Johnson says: ‘These lines stand with so little propriety at the end of this speech that I cannot but suspect them to be misplaced. Where then shall they be inserted? Perhaps after these words, Fool do not flatter (i.e. line 192).’

Rann, following Mason’s suggestion, inserted them after ‘I fear, I fear’ (line 214), and then, says Mason, Ratcliffe’s reply bidding the King not be afraid of shadows, would be natural. Mr Grant White would insert them either after line 178, ‘Soft I did but dream,’ or after 212, ‘I have dream’d a fearful dream.’ As the Folios omit lines 212, 213, Ratcliffe’s allusion to the shadows, of which he has heard nothing, is rendered absurd. Yet the absurdity escaped the notice of all editors before Capell.

NOTE XXVII.

V. 5. We have retained the stage direction of the Quartos and Folios, ‘they fight. Richard is slain,’ in preference to ‘they fight, and exeunt fighting’ of Mr Dyce, because it is probable from Derby’s speech, ‘From the dead temples of this bloody wretch,’ that Richard’s body is lying where he fell, in view of the audience.