◊The First Folio (Folio) of Shakespeare’s plays (1623) contains the earliest surviving text of The Tragedie of Macbeth, where it is sixth among the tragedies, printed between Julius Caesar and Hamlet; this text is probably derived from a Jacobean playhouse script rather than from a literary or reading text. The theatrical tradition produced two important seventeenth-century printed texts: a quarto Macbeth in 1673 (Q1673) published without Shakespeare’s name but generally following Folio with some additional material and several fascinating “editorial” readings, and William Davenant’s adaptation of Macbeth printed in 1674 and here designated “Davenant.” Q1673, Davenant’s play, and Folio Macbeth almost certainly include the work of Thomas Middleton, a distinguished younger contemporary of Shakespeare. All modern editions of “Shakespeare’s” play, including this one, should therefore be considered editions of “Macbeth by William Shakespeare and adapted by Thomas Middleton.” Difficult and rewarding as the play’s language is, the Folio text of Macbeth also contains many moments where the staging is debatable; this edition pays special attention to such moments. Modern editions differ principally on two matters: lineation, particularly in the first half of the play; the treatment of passages almost certainly written by Middleton. Both subjects are discussed in the Textual Analysis essay, as are the questions of “copy” for the Folio, the compositors and printing of Folio, and the possible revision of Folio. The Textual Analysis essay also describes the editorial procedures I have employed and, more important, explains this edition’s silent (that is, uncollated) changes to the text as it appears in Folio. Shakespeare’s plays swoop disconcertingly from language and action that appear unconstrained by time or place to highly precise (and we must suppose, and admit, sometimes now unfathomable) references to particular words, customs, ideas, and preoccupations of early modern England. This oscillation especially characterizes his tragedies, and Macbeth is a supreme example. I have reluctantly, therefore, offered notes on the play’s imaginary locations, but only an Enlightenment editor or reader might guess at where the witches are. This text is a modernized one. For words that are now archaic, the modern equivalent appears if it does not disturb the meter, rhyme, or wordplay; where earlier editions have treated verbal changes as emendations, the collation records the change as a modernization. Thus, at 1.7.6 this text reads “shoal” and the collation records Folio’s archaic form, “Schoole” (which could, of course, at first seem to be the modern word “school”): shoal] Folio (Schoole) For more complicated changes, the collation begins with the reading accepted into the text followed by the source of that change, the Folio reading, and (in chronological order) any other plausible but rejected readings. Thus, a more complicated example (2.2.66) might read: green one red] Q1673, Folio4 (Green one Red); Greene one, Red Folio; green, One red Johnsonwhich means that this text adopts a (modernized) reading shared by Q1673 and Folio4 that is the equivalent of Folio according to modern punctuational conventions and that Samuel Johnson’s edition (1765) repunctuated the phrase and changed its meaning. Another example appears at 2.3.4: Come in time – ] Brooke; Come in time, Folio; Come in, time, Q1673; Come in, Time; Staunton; come in, time-server; NS; Come in farmer, Blackfriars (conj. Anon. in Cam.)This collation means: this text adopts Brooke’s reading, a modernization of Folio’s text; Q1673 repunctuated the phrase; Howard Staunton in his edition guessed Q1673’s reading and made “time” an abstraction; John Dover Wilson (in the New Shakespeare edition) offered an interesting emendation, as did Robert Dent in the Blackfriars edition, following an earlier conjecture. When this text follows Folio in a phrase longer than one or two words, but other editions have made different choices, the collation records only those places where Folio differs from the text offered here. Thus the collation for the stage direction at 4.1.132 reads: Folio (Musicke . . . Dance . . .); Globe adds / with Hecateindicating that this text differs from Folio only in the spelling and capitalization of two words, but that the Globe editors appended a further direction to the original one. More frequently than any earlier edition, the commentary here cites the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and other lexical sources, using the OED’s terminology for parts of speech (sb for “substantive,” a noun; v for “verb,” a for “adjective,” ppl a for “participial adjective,” vbl sb for “verbal substantive,” etc.) and the numbered and lettered sub-divisions in its entries. Exploiting Jürgen Schäfer’s and Bryan A. Garner’s work on the OED and later texts antedating its citations and adding to these works, the commentary draws attention to words that may be Shakespearean coinages and notes those places where Macbeth is the first text cited for a use or definition. Other editions and earlier students of Shakespeare’s language have not always recorded the play’s verbal inventiveness; where appropriate, glosses and citations from OED and of proverbial language therefore suggest the play’s innovation (or adoption of convention) by remarking how frequently a word or phrase occurs or the date of the first recorded use. This information may be wildly inaccurate, however, since all the necessary lexicographical work has not been done. When I cite Macbeth, references are to lines as numbered here unless otherwise noted; Shakespeare’s other plays are cited from the Riverside edition, text ed. G. B. Evans, Boston, 1974. Other editors’ references to Shakespeare are similarly normalized, as are their references to works where I cite different (and more accurate) editions. (See “Abbreviations” [under “Research Tools” in the Tools palette] for the works and editions mentioned here, in the annotations, and in the collation.) Greek and Latin texts are cited from the appropriate Loeb edition with only the translator’s name mentioned; unattributed translations are mine. Unless otherwise noted, the Christian Bible is quoted from the so-called “Bishops’ Bible” (1568). } ^Palex ^ uPalex u ÆPalex Æ ªPalex ª ¿Palex ¿ ΔPalex ΔêPalex êóPalex ó\Palex \dPalex d∂Palex ∂ΩPalex ΩóPalex óûPalex ûÿPalex ÿŸVoyager Ÿ Palex %Palex %øPalex ø¿Voyager ¿Palex Palex ’Palex ’÷Voyager ÷
