"If we compare the speeches of Edmund in Lear, and of Iago in Othello] with Richard's, and in like manner if we compare the way in which Iago's plot is first sown, and springs up and gradually grows and ripens in his brain, with Richard's downright enunciation of his projected series of crimes from the first, we may discern the contrast between the youth and the mature manhood of the mightiest intellect that ever lived upon earth, a contrast almost equally observable in the difference between the diction and metre of the two plays, and not unlike that between a great river rushing along turbidly in Spring, bearing the freshly melted snows from Alpine mountains, with flakes of light scattered here and there over its surface, and the same river, when its waters have subsided into their autumnal tranquillity, and compose a vast mirror for the whole landscape around them, and for the sun and stars and sky and clouds overhead." HARE: Guesses at Truth. HARVARD LIBRARY Preface. The Editions. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third was first printed in 1597, with the following title page :—“ The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. | Containing, | His treacherous Plots against his brother Clarence: | the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes: | his tyrannicall vsurpation: with the whole course of his detested life, and most deserved death. | As it hath been lately Acted by the | Right honourable the Lord Chamber- | laine his servants. 1 AT LONDON | Printed by Valentine Sims, for Andrew Wise, | dwelling in Paules Churchyard, at the Sign of the Angell. | 1597. | " This Edition, known as Q. 1, was reprinted more or less correctly in subsequent Quartos issued in the years 1598 (Q. 2), 1602 (Q. 3), 1605 (Q. 4), 1612 (Q. 5), 1622 (Q. 6), 1629 (Q. 7), 1634 (Q. 8); each of these issues followed its immediate predecessor, except in the case of the 1612-edition, which was printed from the Quarto of 1602: in the second and subsequent Quartos the name of the author (By William Shakespeare) was added. The First and Second Folios give the title of the play as follows: : "The Tragedy of Richard the Third: with the Landing of Earle Richmond, and the Battell at Bosworth Field." The Text. The textual problems connected with Richard the Third are of a complicated nature, owing to the many differ ences between the Quarto version and that of the Folio, The main differences may be grouped under the following heads:— (1) The Folio contains nearly 200 lines which are not found in the Quarto,* while the Quarto contains at least one notable passage not found in the Folio (IV. ii. 103-120); (2) it gives alterations of the Quarto, which could not have been intended by Shakespeare; † (3) in a great many cases it removes (a) gross and obvious metrical defects,+ (6) imaginary metrical irregularities of the Quarto; § (4) it introduces a number of alterations to avoid repeating the same word; || (5) it often modifies "certain terms of phrase and use of words," which had evidently become • Viz. :—I. ii. 16, 25, 155-167 ; iii. 116, 167-169; lv. 36, 37, 69-72, 115, 116, 222, 266-269, 273, 275; II. i. 67; ii. 89-100, 123-140; III. i. 172–174; iii. 7, 8, 15; iv. 104-107; v. 7, 103-105; vii. 5, 6, 37, 98, 99, 120, 127, 144-153, 202, 245; IV. i. 2-6, 37, 98-104 ; iv. 20, 21, 28, 32, 53, 103, 159, 172, 179, 221-234, 276, 277, 288-342, 400; V. iii. 27, 28, 43. ↑ E.g. 'Unmannered dog, standst thou when I command' (I. ii. 39) 'Or let me die, to look on earth no more' (II. iv. 65). E.g. 'And when my uncle told me so he wept, And pitied me, and kindly kissed my cheek; Bade me rely on him as on my father' (II. ii. 23-25). Cp. the Quarto version: 'And when he told me so, he wept And hugg'd me in his arm, and kindly kiss'd my cheek E.g. 'I do remember me, Henry the Sixth,' instead of 'As I remem ber, Henry the Sixth' (IV. ii. 98); (i.e. Henery the Sixth). E.g. Methought that Gloucester stumbled; and in stumbling (Ff., Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard' (I. iv. 18). |