Page:Romeo and Juliet (1917) Yale.djvu/147



The present text is based upon that of Craig's Oxford Shakespeare (Oxford University Press). Both the spelling and the punctuation are Craig's, with the exception of a few unimportant commas and a normalization of the following words: traffic, antic, villainous, lantern. The large number of verbal variations recorded below is due to the peculiar textual problem which this play presents. The first Quarto is notoriously corrupt, being made up—at least in part—from the notes of a spectator in the theatre. Unfortunately the earlier eighteenth century editors gave it much more weight than it deserved, often preferring its readings to those of the fairly accurate second Quarto, from which the later Quartos and the Folios were derived. Hence many of its readings, notably the last line of the third scene of the fourth act, have become traditional. With the exception of this line and of Theobald's emendation, 'sun' for 'same' (I. i. 158)—readings which have the sanction of a long line of Shakespearean editors—it has seemed wise to accept the more authoritative text, save where that of the first Quarto appeared clearly more plausible, and to replace all words having only first Quarto authority by those appearing in the better texts. In the following list of departures from Craig's text the words adopted in the text and placed first are—unless otherwise stated—the readings of Qq2–5 and of the Ff. The words after the colon are—except where otherwise indicated—those preferred by Craig on the authority of the first Quarto alone.