APPENDIX C

THE TEXT

Three versions of Hamlet have survived. These are: the Quarto1 of 1603; the Quarto of 1604; and the text of the First Folio (1623). All three of these texts differ from each other. Modern texts are based upon the Quarto of 1604 and the First Folio.

The Quarto of 1603 offers many perplexing problems. It is a brief2 and mutilated text and the order of the scenes varies from that of the two accepted texts. The title-page is as follows:

THE Tragicall Historie of | HAMLET | Prince of Denmarke | By William Shake-speare. | As it hath beene diuerse times acted by his Highnesse Seruants in the Cittie of London: as also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and else-where [Vignette] At London printed for N. L. and Iohn Trundell. 1603.

It is probable that this text was a pirated edition based upon notes taken in shorthand during a performance at the theatre. The differences, however, in the order of the scenes, the alteration in the conception of Gertrude's character, the almost total omission of the soliloquies, and the less subtle and elaborate dialogue throughout would seem to indicate that Hamlet was thoroughly revised before the publication of the second Quarto in 1604. Last of all, as tending to confirm this supposition, is the fact that certain of the characters appear under altered names in the

1 The text is published in Furness' Variorum Hamlet, vol. II.

2 It is about half the length of the Quarto of 1604.

later text; Corambis becomes Polonius, and Montano, Reynaldo.1

The text of the present edition is substantially that of Craig's Oxford Shakespeare (Oxford University Press).

The departures from this are of three kinds: (1) the stage directions of the first Folio (1623) or of the second Quarto (1604) have been restored wherever these existed, additional stage directions not found in the two original texts being placed in square brackets; (2) passages or whole lines occurring in the second Quarto, but not in the first Folio, have been enclosed in square brackets; (3) in a few instances a return has been made to the reading of the first Folio when the editor was of the opinion that an emendation of the text was unnecessary.

The following is a list of the alterations of the Craig text under (3), the words of the present text and of the first Folio preceding the colon, those of Craig's text following it. Minor changes of spelling and punctuation have not been noted.

moods: modes

Saw? Who?: Saw who?

The king, my father?: The king, my father!
Arm'd at all points: Armed at points
it: its

Roaming: Running

bonds: bawds

I. ii. 82

I. ii. 190

I. ii. 191

I. ii. 200

I. ii. 216

I. iii. 109

I. iii. 130

I. iv. 45

I. iv. 79

I. v. 107

I. v. 133

hurling: whirling

I. v. 174

II. ii. 45

II. ii. 324

II. ii. 388

father, royal Dane; O! answer: father; royal Dane, O! answer

wafts: waves

My tables, my tables: My tables

or thus, head shake; or this head-shake
God, one: God and

in form and moving: in form, in moving
[delete] 'very'

1 Cf. also "Duke" and "Duchess" in place of King and Queen in The Murder of Gonzago; and "First Centinel" for Francisco.

V. ii. 358 O good Horatio: O God! Horatio

APPENDIX D

SUGGESTIONS FOR COLLATEral Reading

William Hazlitt in Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817). (Reprinted in Everyman's Library.)

S. T. Coleridge in Lectures on Shakespeare, etc., 2 vols. (1849). (Reprinted in Everyman's Library.) Helena Faucit in Shakespeare's Female Characters, Ophelia, pp. 1-21 (1885. 7th ed. 1914).

Mrs. Jameson in Characteristics of Women, Ophelia, pp. 187-207. (New ed. Riverside Press, n. d.) John Corbin, The Elizabethan Hamlet (1895).

A. C. Bradley in Shakespearean Tragedy (1904). (Hamlet, Lectures III and IV.)

Sidney Lee in Shakespeare and the Modern Stage (1906).

Charlton M. Lewis, The Genesis of Hamlet (1907). Karl Werder, The Heart of Hamlet's Mystery, Eng. transl. (1907).

Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, ed. by J. Schick (1907). (Temple Dramatists.)

William Winter in Shakespeare on the Stage (1911), chap. v, Hamlet.

W. F. Trench, Shakespeare's Hamlet (1913).

Stopford A. Brooke in Ten More Plays of Shakespeare, chap. iv, Hamlet (1913).

H. H. Furness, Variorum Hamlet, 2 vols. (1877).

INDEX OF WORDS GLOSSED

(Figures in full-faced type refer to page-numbers)