Verona

INTRODUCTION TO ROMEO AND JULIET

       Table of Contents

The History of the Play

       Table of Contents

      The earliest edition of Romeo and Juliet, so far as we know, was a quarto printed in 1597, the title-page of which asserts that "it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely." A second quarto appeared in 1599, declared to be "newly corrected, augmented, and amended."

      Two other quartos appeared before the folio of 1623, one in 1609 and the other undated; and it is doubtful which was the earlier. The undated quarto is the first that bears the name of the author ("Written by W. Shake-speare"), but this does not occur in some copies of the edition. A fifth quarto was published in 1637.

      The first quarto is much shorter than the second, the former having only 2232 lines, including the prologue, while the latter has 3007 lines (Daniel). Some editors believe that the first quarto gives the author's first draft of the play, and the second the form it took after he had revised and enlarged it; but the majority of the best critics agree substantially in the opinion that the first quarto was a pirated edition, and represents in an abbreviated and imperfect form the play subsequently printed in full in the second. The former was "made up partly from copies of portions of the original play, partly from recollection and from notes taken during the performance;" the latter was from an authentic copy, and a careful comparison of the text with the earlier one shows that in the meantime the play "underwent revision, received some slight augmentation, and in some few places must have been entirely rewritten." A marked instance of this rewriting—the only one of considerable length—is in ii. 6. 6–37, where the first quarto reads thus (spelling and pointing being modernized):—

      Jul. Romeo.

      Rom. My Juliet, welcome. As do waking eyes

      Closed in Night's mists attend the frolick Day,

      So Romeo hath expected Juliet,

      And thou art come.

      Jul. I am, if I be Day,

      Come to my Sun: shine forth and make me fair.

      Rom. All beauteous fairness dwelleth in thine eyes.

      Jul. Romeo, from thine all brightness doth arise.

      Fri. Come, wantons, come, the stealing hours do pass,

      Defer embracements till some fitter time.

      Part for a while, you shall not be alone

      Till holy Church have joined ye both in one.

      Rom. Lead, holy Father, all delay seems long.

      Jul. Make haste, make haste, this lingering doth us wrong.

      For convenient comparison I quote the later text here:—

      Juliet. Good even to my ghostly confessor.

      Friar Laurence. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

      Juliet. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

      Romeo. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy

      Be heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more

      To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath

      This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue

      Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both

      Receive in either by this dear encounter.

      Juliet. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,

      Brags of his substance, not of ornament.

      They are but beggars that can count their worth;

      But my true love is grown to such excess

      I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.

      Friar Laurence. Come, come with me, and we will make short work;

      For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone

      Till holy church incorporate two in one.

      The