All the unsigned footnotes in this volume are by the writer of the article to which they are appended. The interpretation of the initials signed to the others is: I. G. Israel Gollancz, M.A.; H. N. H. Henry Norman Hudson, A.M.; C. H. H. C. H. Herford, Litt.D. PREFACE By ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, M.A. EDITIONS The earliest edition of King Henry the Fifth is a quarto published in 1600, with the following title: "The Chronicle | History of Henry the Fifth with his battell fought at Agin Court in France. Together with Auntient Pistoll. As it hath bene sundry times played by the Right honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. LONDON Printed by Thomas Creede, for Tho. Millington, and Iohn Busby. And are to be sold the Powle head. at his house in Carter Lane, next 1600. This quarto was reprinted in 1602 and 1608. In the First Folio the title of the play is The Life of Henry the Fift.1 The text of the quarto edition differs in many important respects from that of the folio; (i) it omits all the prologues and the epilogue; (ii) some five hundred lines besides are in no wise represented therein; (iii) the speeches of certain characters are transferred to other characters, so that the actors are fewer; 2 confusion in time-indications; (iv) corruptions, obscurities, and minor discrepancies abound. The Quarto is obviously derived from an edition abridged for acting purposes, evidently an imperfect and 3 1 Edited by W. G. Stone, New Shak. Soc., 1880. 2 Ely, Westmoreland, Bedford, Britany, Rambures, Erpingham, Grandpré, Macmorris, Jamy, Messenger, II. iv., and IV. ii., and the French Queen, have no speeches assigned to them in the Quarto. 8 Up. Henry V, Parallel Texts, ed. Nicholson, with Introduction, by P. A. Daniel; New Shak. Soc. 3 unauthorized version made up from shorthand notes taken at the theater, and afterwards amplified. The original of this abridged edition was in all probability the Folio text, more or less, as we know it. This view of the question is now generally accepted, and few scholars are inclined to maintain that "the original of the Quarto was an earlier one without choruses, and following the Chronicle historians much more closely.” 1 THE DATE OF COMPOSITION The reference to Essex in the Prologue to Act V (vide Note) shows that Henry the Fifth must have been acted between March 27 and September 28, 1599; 2 the play is not mentioned by Meres in his Palladis Tamia, 1598, though Henry IV is included in this list; the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV makes promise of Henry V, but "our humble author" has modified his original conception; 3 this change of plan is intimately connected with the composition of The Merry Wives of Windsor; the play is found in the Stationers' Register under August 4, 1600 (together with 1 Vide Fleay, Life and Work of Shakespeare, p. 206. Besides thus differentiating the two editions, Mr. Fleay takes the scene with the Scotch and Irish captains (III. ii. I. 69 to the end of the scene) to be an insertion for the Court performance, Christmas, 1605, to please King James, who had been annoyed that year by depreciation of the Scots on the stage. This scene is certainly a contrast to the anti-Scottish feeling in Act I. sc. ii. The late Richard Simpson made some interesting, though doubtful, observations on the political teaching of Henry V in a paper dealing with The politics of Shakespeare's Historical Plays (New Shak. Soc., 1874). 2 It is fair to assume that the choruses were written for the first performances, though Pope, Warburton, and others held that these were inserted at a later period; they must, however, have formed an integral portion of Shakespeare's original scheme; considerations of time may have necessitated their omission in the abridged acting edition. 3 "Our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France; where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat," etc. |