THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE

GENERAL EDITOR
Brian Gibbons

ASSOCIATE GENERAL EDITOR
A. R. Braunmuller

From the publication of the first volumes in 1984 the General Editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeare was Philip Brockbank and the Associate General editors were Brian Gibbons and Robin Hood. From 1990 to 1994 the General Editor was Brian Gibbons and the Associate General Editors were A. R. Braunmuller and Robin Hood.

THE FIRST QUARTO OF ROMEO AND JULIET

Two different versions of Romeo and Juliet were published during Shakespeare's lifetime: the first quarto of 1597, and the second quarto of 1599, on which modern editions are usually based. The earlier version was long denigrated as a ‘bad’ quarto, but recent scholarship sees in it a crucial witness for the theatrical practices of Shakespeare and his company. The shorter of the two versions by about one quarter, the first quarto has high-paced action, fuller stage directions than the second quarto, and fascinating alternatives to the famous speeches in the longer version. The introduction to this edition provides a full discussion of the origins of the first quarto, before analysing its distinguishing features and presenting a concise history of the 1597 version. The text is provided with a detailed collation and commentary which alert the reader to crucial differences between the first and the second quartos.

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE

All’s Well That Ends Well, edited by Russell Fraser
Antony and Cleopatra, edited by David Bevington
As You Like It, edited by Michael Hattaway
The Comedy of Errors, edited by T. S. Dorsch
Coriolanus, edited by Lee Bliss
Cymbeline, edited by Martin Butler
Hamlet, edited by Philip Edwards
Julius Caesar, edited by Marvin Spevack
King Edward Ⅲ, edited by Giorgio Melchiori
The First Part of King Henry Ⅳ, edited by Herbert Weil and Judith Weil
The Second Part of King Henry Ⅳ, edited by Giorgio Melchiori
King Henry Ⅴ, edited by Andrew Gurr
The First Part of King Henry Ⅵ, edited by Michael Hattaway
The Second Part of King Henry Ⅵ, edited by Michael Hattaway
The Third Part of King Henry Ⅵ, edited by Michael Hattaway
King Henry Ⅷ, edited by John Margeson
King John, edited by L. A. Beaurline
The Tragedy of King Lear, edited by Jay L. Halio
King Richard Ⅱ, edited by Andrew Gurr
King Richard Ⅲ, edited by Janis Lull
Macbeth, edited by A. R. Braunmuller
Measure for Measure, edited by Brian Gibbons
The Merchant of Venice, edited by M. M. Mahood
The Merry Wives of Windsor, edited by David Crane
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, edited by R. A. Foakes
Much Ado About Nothing, edited by F. H. Mares
Othello, edited by Norman Sanders
Pericles, edited by Doreen DelVecchio and Antony Hammond
The Poems, edited by John Roe
Romeo and Juliet, edited by G. Blakemore Evans
The Sonnets, edited by G. Blakemore Evans
The Taming of the Shrew, edited by Ann Thompson
The Tempest, edited by David Lindley
Timon of Athens, edited by Karl Klein
Titus Andronicus, edited by Alan Hughes
Troilus and Cressida, edited by Anthony B. Dawson
Twelfth Night, edited by Elizabeth Story Donno
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, edited by Kurt Schlueter
The Winter’s Tale, edited by Susan Snyder and Deborah T. Curren-Aquino

THE EARLY QUARTOS
The First Quarto of Hamlet, edited by Kathleen O. Irace
The First Quarto of King Henry Ⅴ, edited by Andrew Gurr
The First Quarto of King Lear, edited by Jay L. Halio
The First Quarto of King Richard Ⅲ, edited by Peter Davison
The First Quarto of Othello, edited by Scott McMillin
The First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, edited by Lukas Erne
The Taming of a Shrew: The 1594 Quarto, edited by Stephen Roy Miller

THE FIRST QUARTO OF
ROMEO AND JULIET

Edited by

LUKAS ERNE

Professor of English
University of Geneva

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521821216

© Cambridge University Press 2007

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2007

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN-13 978-0-521-82121-6 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-82121-5 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

THE NEW CAMBRIDGE SHAKESPEARE THE EARLY QUARTOS

There is no avoiding edited Shakespeare, the question is only what kind of editing. A Shakespeare play first assumed material form as the author’s bundle of manuscript sheets. The company of players required a manuscript fair copy of the play (apart from the individual actors’ parts). Into the fair copy were entered playhouse changes, and the bookholder used it during each performance. However, none of Shakespeare’s plays survives in contemporary manuscript form. There is one passage in the manuscript of Sir Thomas More by Hand D which has been ascribed to Shakespeare himself, but this attribution remains in serious dispute. In short, there is no direct access to Shakespeare’s play-manuscripts – there is only print, and this implies editing, since the first printed versions of Shakespeare were mediated by compositors and proofreaders at least, and sometimes also by revisers, bookholders, editors, censors, and scribes. The first printers used either the author’s or a playhouse manuscript or some combination of the two, although for several plays they used a scribal transcript by Ralph Crane, who is known to have habitually effaced and altered his copy.

   There are certain quartos which are abbreviated, apparently because they are reported texts or derive from playhouse adaptation. These early quartos are not chosen as copy-texts for modern critical editions and are not readily available, though indispensable to advanced students of Shakespeare and of textual bibliography. Alongside the standard volumes in the New Cambridge Shakespeare, editions of selected quarto texts are to be published in critical, modern-spelling form, including early quartos of King Lear, Hamlet, Richard Ⅲ, and Othello.

   While the advanced textual scholar must work either with the rare, actual copies of the earliest printed editions, or with photo-facsimiles of them, there is more general interest in these texts and hence a need to present them in a form that makes them more generally accessible, a form that provides the most up-to-date and expert scholarship and engages with the key issues of how these texts differ from other quarto versions and from the First Folio, and to what effect. These are the precise aims of New Cambridge Shakespeare quartos.

   Each volume presents, with the text and collation, an introductory essay about the quarto text, its printing, and the nature of its differences from the other early printed versions. There is discussion of scholarly hypotheses about its nature and provenance, including its theatrical provenance, where that issue is appropriate. The accompanying notes address textual, theatrical, and staging questions, following the spacious and handsome format of the New Cambridge Shakespeare.

BRIAN GIBBONS
General Editor

Contents

ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE

In preparing this edition, I have incurred extensive debts to former editors of Romeo and Juliet, notably to Brian Gibbons, G. Blakemore Evans, John Jowett, and Jill L. Levenson. My work in progress was much facilitated and accelerated by the time I was allowed to spend at the Folger Shakespeare Library, and I wish to thank the Library for granting me a short-term fellowship and its staff for their assistance. Patrick Cheney, Jeremy Ehrlich, Andrew Gurr, and M. J. Kidnie kindly read the Introduction and helped me with many incisive comments and suggestions. Sarah Stanton offered generous advice and support, while Brian Gibbons’s patience and scholarship saved me from many mistakes. My thinking on specific points of this edition was shaped by conversations with David Carnegie, Jeremy Ehrlich, Steven May, Barbara Mowat, William Sherman, James Siemon, and Valerie Wayne, and I am grateful to all of them. I further wish to thank Emma Depledge, who helped me correct the typescript at a late stage, Giorgio Melchiori, who granted me access to an article of his prior to appearance in print, and Barry Kraft of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, who sent me material about the Romeo and Juliet production he directed. For various other kindnesses I am grateful to Pascale Aebischer, Y. S. Bains, Helen Hargest, Jill Levenson, and Michael Suarez, SJ. Finally, I wish to thank Katrin, Rebecca, and Raphael, who have made work on this edition much more pleasurable than it might have been.

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

Unless otherwise stated, the edition of Romeo and Juliet cited is that of the New Cambridge Shakespeare (referred to as ‘NCS’) of 2003 (2nd edn; 1st edn, 1984), edited by G. Blakemore Evans. Other editions and critical works are cited under the editor’s or author’s name (Pope, Hoppe). Shakespeare’s works are cited in this edition in the abbreviated style of the series, modified slightly from the Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare. Quotations from other plays of Shakespeare are taken from the Oxford Complete Works (1986), under the general editorship of Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor.

1. Shakespeare’s works

Ado	Much Ado About Nothing
Ant.	Antony and Cleopatra
AWW	All’s Well That Ends Well
AYLI	As You Like It
Cor.	Coriolanus
Cym.	Cymbeline
Err.	Comedy of Errors
Ham.	Hamlet
1H4	The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
2H4	The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
H5	King Henry the Fifth
1H6	The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
2H6	The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
3H6	The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
H8	Henry the Eighth
JC	Julius Ceasar
John	King John
LLL	Love’s Labours Lost
Lear	The Tragedy of King Lear
Lucr.	The Rape of Lucrece
Mac.	Macbeth
MM	Measure for Measure
MND	A Midsummer Night’s Dream
MV	The Merchant of Venice
Oth.	Othello
Per.	Pericles
PP	The Passionate Pilgrim
R2	King Richard the Second
R3	King Richard the Third
Rom.	Romeo and Juliet
Shr.	The Taming of the Shrew
Son.	Sonnets
STM	Sir Thomas More
Temp.	The Tempest
TGV	The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Tim.	Timon of Athens
Tit.	Titus Andronicus
TN	Twelfth Night
TNK	The Two Noble Kinsmen
Tro.	Troilus and Cressida
Wiv.	The Merry Wives of Windsor
WT	The Winter’s Tale

2. Other works cited, general references, and abbreviations

Works mentioned once in the Introduction, collation, or commentary appear there with full bibliographical information. Those which appear several times are abbreviated to the short form given below.