Much adoe about Nothing. it hath beenfandrie tunes pu afted by the right honourablc,thc Lord Chambcrlaine his fcruantt. LONDON Printed by V.S.for Andrew Wifc,and William Afpley, jdOO. FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE-PAGE OF THE QUARTO THENEWHUDSON SHAKESPEARE Tffi COMEDYOF MUCH ADO % ABOUT ^NOTHING HENKfNORMAN EDITED AND REVISED BY EBENEZER CHARDTON BIACK LDD- (GLASGOW) AND COMPANY BOSTON NEWTORK CHICAGO LONDON ATLANTA. DALLAS COLUMBUS SANFRANCBO eft COPYRIGHT, 1880, BY HENRY N. HUDSON COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY KATE W. HUDSON COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY GINN AND COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 738.10 PR itfte flllitmtnm jprtsg GINN AND COMPANY PRO PRIETORS BOSTON U.S.A. PREFACE The text of this edition of Much Ado About Nothing is based upon a collation of the Quarto of 1600, the seven teenth century Folios, the Globe edition, and the Cambridge (W. Aldis Wright) edition of 1891. As compared with the text of the earlier editions of the Hudson Shakespeare, it is conservative. Exclusive of changes in spelling, punctuation, and stage directions, very few emendations by eighteenth and nineteenth editors have been century century adopted ; and these, with variations from the First Folio, are indicated in the textual notes. These notes are printed immediately below the text, so that a reader or student may see at a glance the evidence in the case of a disputed reading, and have some definite understanding of the reasons for those differences in the text of Shakespeare which frequently sur prise and very often annoy. Such an arrangement should be of special help in the case of a play universally read and often acted, since no two actors or interpreters agree in ad hering to one text. A consideration of the more poetical, or the more dramatically effective, of two variant readings will often lead to rich results in awakening a spirit of dis criminating interpretation and in developing creative criticism. In no sense is this a textual variorum edition. The variants given are only those of importance and of high authority. The spelling of the text is modern except in the case of verb terminations in -ed, which, when the e is silent, are iv THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE printed with the apostrophe in its place. This is the general usage in the First Folio. The important contractions in the First Folio which may indicate Elizabethan pronuncia * tion ('i' th" for 'in the,' 'rememb'red' for remember'd,' 1 ' * pamp'red for pamper'd,' for example) are also followed. Modern spelling has to a certain extent been adopted in the text variants, but the original spelling has been retained wherever its peculiarities have been the basis for important textual criticism and emendation. The punctuation follows to a great extent that of the Folios in the use of the colon and the more important parentheses. In this way the spirit of the original printing, which is often a guide to the original interpretation, is preserved, as it is in the King James version of the Bible. With the exception of the position of the textual variants, the plan of this edition is similar to that of the earlier editions of the Hudson Shakespeare. It is impossible to specify the various instances of revision and rearrangement in the matter of the Introduction and the interpretative notes, but the en deavor has been to retain all that gave the Hudson Shake' speare its unique place and to add the results of what seems vital and permanent in later inquiry and research. In this edition, as in the volumes of the series already published, the chapters entitled Sources, Date of Composition, Early Editions, Diction and Versification, Title of the Play, Dura tion of Action, Dramatic Construction and Development, with Analysis by Act and Scene, and Stage History are wholly new. In this edition, too, is introduced a chronolog ical chart covering the important events of Shakespeare's life as man and as author and indicating in parallel columns his relation to contemporary writers and events. As a guide PREFACE V to reading clubs and literary societies, there has been ap pended to the Introduction a table of the distribution of characters in the play, giving the acts and scenes in which each character appears and the number of lines spoken by each. The index of words and phrases has been so arranged as to serve both as a glossary and as a guide to the more important grammatical differences between Elizabethan and modern English. While it is important that the principle of suum cuique be attended to so far as is possible in matters of research and scholarship, it is becoming more and more difficult to give every man his own in Shakespearian annotation, but the list of authorities given on page Iv will indicate the chief source of much that has gone to enrich the value of this edition. Especial acknowledgment is here made of the obli gations to Dr. William Aldis Wright and Dr. Horace Howard Furness, whose work in the collation of Quartos, Folios, and the more important English and American editions of Shake speare has been of so great value to all subsequent editors and investigators. With regard to the general plan of this edition, Professor William Peterfield Trent, of Columbia University, has offered valuable suggestions and given important advice. In the case of Much Ado About Nothing particular acknowledgment is due to Dr. Francis Kingsley Ball. To his critical acumen and literary sagacity are due the explanations connected with the return to the text in original I, i, 138-140 ; IV, i, 197 ; and V, i, 16. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE I. SOURCES x THE STORY OF HERO AND CLAUDIO x BANDELLO'S NOVELLE x BELLEFOREST'S HISTOIRES TRAGIQUES .... xii A LOST PLAY xii THE PERSONATING OF HERO xiii ARIOSTO'S ORLANDO FURIOSO xiii ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS xiv THE FAERIE QUEENE xiv THE STORY OF BENEDICK AND BEATRICE. ... xv SHAKESPEARE'S EARLIER PLAYS xv BENEDICTS AND BETTERis xvi DOGBERRY, VERGES, AND THE WATCH xvii FRIAR FRANCIS xvii SHAKESPEARE'S USE OF SOURCES xviii II. DATE OF COMPOSITION xix EXTERNAL EVIDENCE xx THE STATIONERS' REGISTERS xx INTERNAL EVIDENCE xxi ALLUSIONS WITHIN THE PLAY xxi QUALITIES OF STYLE AND DICTION .... xxii III. EARLY EDITIONS xxiii QUARTO OF 1600 xxiii FOLIOS xxiv ROWE'S EDITIONS xxv IV. DICTION AND VERSIFICATION xxv PROSE xxv BLANK VERSE xxviii vii viii THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE PACK ALEXANDRINES xxix RHYME xxx FIVE-STRESS IAMBIC VERSE xxx TROCHAIC VERSE xxxi LYRICS xxxi DOGGEREL xxxii V. TITLE OF THE PLAY xxxii VI. DURATION OF ACTION xxxiii P. A. DANIEL'S TIME ANALYSIS xxxiv VII. DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT . xxxv ANALYSIS BY ACT AND SCENE xxxvi VIII. THE CHARACTERS xl HERO AND CLAUDIO xl DON JOHN xliii DOGBERRY AND VERGES xliv BENEDICK AND BEATRICE xlv WIT OF BENEDICK AND BEATRICE xlviii IX. STAGE HISTORY xlix AUTHORITIES (WITH ABBREVIATIONS) Iv CHRONOLOGICAL CHART Ivi DISTRIBUTION OF CHARACTERS Ix THE TEXT ACT I 3 ACT II 25 ACT III 58 ACT IV 85 ACT V 105 INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES 135 FACSIMILE TITLE-PAGE, QUARTO OF 1600 Frontispiece INTRODUCTION The main story of Much Ado About Nothing turns upon a stratagem by which a lover, Claudio, on the eve of his mar riage is made to believe that his betrothed, Hero, is unfaithful. She has been personated by one of her waiting women and be so exposed to peril and disgrace. Claudio accuses Hero fore the altar and breaks off the marriage. The repudiated bride is overcome with humiliation. It is given out that she is dead, but the villainy of which she is the victim is unmasked by the help of a pompous parish constable, Dogberry, whose watchmen have overheard the story of the plot, and after complications and disguises Hero is restored to Claudio. With the more serious matter of the play is inwoven the love-making of Hero's cousin Beatrice and Claudio's friend Benedick. They appear first as witty and brilliant jesters at love, flouting each other in an atmosphere of banter and good-humored disdain, but by a trick their friends make them believe that each loves the other, and the tragic rela tions in which Hero is involved bring out what is deepest and noblest in their natures. They agree to befriend the slandered bride, and when Hero is restored to Claudio, " Benedick and Beatrice plight troth as man and wife. Per " haps," says Hazlitt, the middle point of comedy was never more nicely hit, in which the ludicrous blends with the tender, and our follies, turning round against themselves, in support of our affections, retain nothing but their humanity." X THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE I. SOURCES The leading incidents of Much Ado About Nothing had been the property of European story-tellers from the fifth 1 century onwards, and when Shakespeare took the old story and introduced into it the high comedy connected with Beatrice and Benedick, and made Dogberry and his fellows defeat the machinations of Don John, he was true to his usual plan of taking for the framework of a play a theme of general interest and common appeal, and then adding material for plot and motive from his own superb knowl edge of human nature and humorous appreciation of the important part played in the drama of life by man's oddities and stupidities. THE STORY OF HERO AND CLAUDIO 2 i. Bandelld*s Novelle. Capell was the first to draw atten tion to the parallel between the main plot of Much Ado About Nothing and one of the tales (Novelle, printed in 1554) of the Italian poet and story-writer Bandello (Matteo Bandello, 1480-1562).