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Read Ebook: Task to Luna by Coppel Alfred Mayan Earl Illustrator
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Ebook has 29 lines and 4943 words, and 1 pages
PAGE The Preface ix
THE TEMPEST 3 Notes to the Tempest 77
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA 83 Notes to the Two Gentlemen of Verona 157
Introduction to the Merry Wives of Windsor 163 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR 165 Notes to the Merry Wives of Windsor 253 A Pleasant Conceited Comedy of Syr John Falstaffe, &c. 257
MEASURE FOR MEASURE 295 Notes to Measure for Measure 391
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS 399 Notes to the Comedy of Errors 462
PREFACE
The main rules which we proposed to ourselves in undertaking this Edition are as follows:
An edition of Shakespeare on this plan has been for several years in contemplation, and has been the subject of much discussion. That such an edition was wanted seemed to be generally allowed, and it was thought that Cambridge afforded facilities for the execution of the task such as few other places could boast of. The Shakespearian collection given by Capell to the Library of Trinity College supplied a mass of material almost unrivalled in amount and value, and in some points unique; and there, too, might be found opportunities for combined literary labour, without which the work could not be executed at all. At least, if undertaken by one person only, many years of unremitting diligence would be required for its completion.
All the persons who answered this appeal expressed their warm approval of the general plan, and many favoured us with suggestions as to details, which we have either adopted, or at least not rejected without careful and respectful consideration.
This concurrence of opinion leads us to hope that our Edition will be found to supply a real want, while, at the same time, the novelty of its plan will exempt us from all suspicion of a design to supersede, or even compete with, the many able and learned Editors who have preceded us in the same field.
We will first proceed to explain the principles upon which we have prepared our text.
'Neif,' which is spelt 'niefe' in Qq F1, becomes 'newfe' in F2, 'newse' and 'news' in F3 F4.
F1 omits 'trusty.' F2 makes up the line by inserting 'gentle.'
Where the Folios are all obviously wrong, and the Quartos also fail us, we have introduced into the text several conjectural emendations; especially we have often had recourse to Theobald's ingenuity. But it must be confessed that a study of errors detracts very much from the apparent certainty of conjectures, the causelessness of the blunders warning us off the hope of restoring, by general principles or by discovery of causes of error.
Or else it stood upon the choice of merit,
the reading of the Folios, is certainly wrong; but if we compare the true reading preserved in the Quartos, 'the choice of friends,' we can perceive no way to account for the change of 'friends' to 'merit,' by which we might have retraced the error from 'merit' to 'friends.' Nothing like the 'ductus literarum,' or attraction of the eye to a neighbouring word, can be alleged here.
Hence though we have admitted conjectures sometimes, we have not done so as often as perhaps will be expected. For, in the first place, we admit none because we think it better rhythm or grammar or sense, unless we feel sure that the reading of the Folio is altogether impossible. In the second place, the conjecture must appear to us to be the only probable one. If the defect can be made good in more ways than one equally plausible, or, at least, equally possible, we have registered but not adopted these improvements, and the reader is intended to make his own selection out of the notes.
This last error points to a very common anomaly in grammar; one which seems almost to have become a rule, or, at any rate, a license in Shakespeare's own time, that a verb shall agree in number with the nominative intervening between the true governing noun and the verb.
As examples of the anomalies of grammar sanctioned by Elizabethan usage we may mention:--
Singular verbs, with plural nouns, especially when the verb precedes its nominative:
Nominatives for accusatives:
And repeatedly 'who' for 'whom.'
Omission of prepositions:
But, in general, our practice has been not to alter the text, in order to make the grammar conform to the fixed rules of modern English. A wide latitude of speech was allowed in Shakespeare's age both as to spelling and grammar.
For additional contact information:
Whenever any commentary was known to us to exist in a separate form, we have always, if possible, procured it. In some few instances, we have been obliged to take the references at second-hand.
In an address 'To the great variety of Readers' following the dedication to the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery, the following passage occurs:
'It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liv'd to have set forth, and overseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to have collected & publish'd them; and so to have publish'd them, as where you were abus'd with diverse stolne and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and st
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