Nicholas Rowe, in the beginning of the 18th century, that a serious attempt was made to "edit" Shakespeare in the modern sense of the word. Passages in the First Folio that one would think even a child might have interpreted and rectified are left by the editors of the Second Folio just as they found them. For example, in the First Folio of II. Henry IV III 1, 9-12), the famous apostrophe to sleep is written thus: "Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee And hushed with buzzing night, flies to thy slumber, A mere reading of this passage aloud would seem to be sufficient to displace the comma between night and flies and to make a compound of the two; but the editors of the Second Folio repeat the senseless reading and are in turn slavishly followed by the editors of 1664 and 1685. Again, in the First Folio of King John (V 7, 15—18), Prince Henry is made to say of the king's dying condition: "Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now Against the wind, the which he pricks and wounds This error of wind for mind is repeated by all the other folios, though the Prince had already suggested the right reading by saying that the king's brain was seriously affected. These citations are taken at random and could be mul tiplied ad libitum; but even a superficial acquaintance with the contents of the Second Folio will suffice to show the reader that the editors made little attempt at exegesis, and that the controlling purpose of their new edition is not to be sought in the realm of conjectural readings or of brilliant emendations. This purpose must be sought in the realm of syntax. It is true, as White says, that "neither of the last three folios is of the slightest authority in determining the text of Shakespeare"; but the Second Folio is of unique service and significance in its attempts to render more "correct" and bookish the unfettered syntax of the First. The First Folio is to the Second as spoken language is to written. language. It must not be thought that the language had materially changed from 1623 to 1632. The supreme syn tactic value of Shakespeare's work as represented in the First Folio is that it shows us the English language unfettered by bookish impositions. Shakespeare's syntax was that of the speaker, not that of the essayist; for the drama represents the unstudied utterance of people under all kinds and degrees of emotion, ennui, pain, and passion. Its syntax, to be truly representative, must be familiar, conversational, spontaneous; not studied and formal. Men do not speak as they write. Shakespeare shows in the few formal letters and studied orations that he introduced into his plays that he felt instinctively the stylistic grades that should be preserved. But in the one-volume edition of 1623 Shakespeare's dramas entered upon a new sphere of service: they became popular not only as stage material but as reading material. Hence a new edition was called for, in which the chief burden of the endeavor should be to make the language conform to the needs of written style rather than to the demands of oral delivery. That the new edition of 1632 supplied a syntactical need is proved by the fact that it at once displaced the First Folio. And the editors of each succeeding folio proceeded in precisely the same spirit as did the editors of the Second Folio; that is, they "improved" the syntax of their predecessors as well as the spelling. It would be hard to find any trustworthy evidence to prove that the editors of the Third Folio ever looked beyond the Second, or that the editors of the Fourth had recourse even once to the Second or First. The syntactical differences between the Second Folio and the Third, between the Third and the Fourth, and even between the Second and the Fourth are far fewer than the syntactical differences between the first two Folios; but they mark no essential change of editorial purpose. That purpose is syntactical, not exegetical, throughout them all. Joel might well have had in prevision the last three sets of Folio editors when he wrote: "That which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten." Before they reach the plays of Shakespeare, the editors of the Second Folio show their syntactical hand by altering in the Preface an offending whom. Heminge and Condell, the editors of the First Folio, had written: "And so we leave you to other of his friends, whom if you need, can be your guides." In the Second Folio, and of course in the Third and Fourth, whom is supplanted by who. But, the vast majority of the changes made are to be found in the concord of subject and predicate and especially in the change of a singular predicate into the plural. Let it be distinctly understood, however, that by "singular predicate" I mean a predicate singular in form (in ending), not necessarily singular in function. When Shakespeare writes, "My old bones akes"; or King Henry VII1) to his mother, "Such debts and duties which is oweing and dew unto you in France", and to the Pope, "Which discensions and divisions hath yeven the Turke greate boldnesse... And also considering the greate stormes and perilles of the sea which comonly fortune and happe, and parteth shippes and driveth theym to severall coosts, and twiseth theym"; or John Colet, "Wherin pristes and byshops nowe a dayes doth besy them selfe" (Sermon A. D. 1512); or Sir Thomas More, "So do such writings as Luthers is" (Dialogue A. D. 1528); or John Leland, "Of what matters the writers, whose lyues I have congested into III bokes, hath treated of" (Journey A. D. 1546), are we to believe that the predicate connotes a singular conception? It would be impossible to answer this question for all cases, but my own feeling is that in the majority of such sentences the predicate is singular merely in form and origin (see III, note) but plural in function. In other words, there has been no shrinkage in the subjects: "bones" &c. are felt by the writers to be plural and therefore the predicates, akes &c., are also genuine plurals. When a Louisiana negro says, "Deez here is de meanest mules I ever seed", it would be absurd to say that because he uses "is" he thinks of "mules" as singular. The difference that Shakespeare felt between "My old bones akes" and "My old bones ake" was, in my opinion, not a difference in the plural import of "bones" but a difference in style. The former was felt to be more popular and conversational; it marked a lower level of style and a less studied method of utterance. 1) See Henry Ellis's Original Letters Illustrative of Eng. Hist, (vol. I). The last three examples are culled from Flügel's Neuenglisches Lesebuch. Scores of similar sentences could be cited. In his treatment of There is, Here is &c. followed by plural subjects Franz remarks (Sh. Gram. p. 396): Wie die Abänderungen Rowe's beweisen, sind derartige Licenzen bereits im Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts verpönt.< But my contention is that to the editors of the Second Folio, seventy-seven years before the appearance of Rowe's edition, such constructions had already come to appear as unwarranted in the best written style, and that the very purpose of their edition was to remove from Shakespeare's pages these concessions to popular syntax. This paper will therefore confine itself to an exhaustive enumeration of the passages in which the concord of subject and predicate, whether in number or person, is altered in the Second Folio1). The passages will be cited according to the numbering of the Globe Edition, but the spelling and punctuation of the First Folio will be retained. 1) I have not made an exhaustive list of the pronominal changes, but have noted the following: Tempest I 2, 79-81. Pros.: "Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance and who To trash for over-topping." Second Folio: whom . . . whom. ... Henry V IV 1, 150-152. Williams: "It will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion." Second Folio: whom. Ant. and Cl. III 6, 23. Agr.: "Who does he accuse II. Following are the passages with simple subjects, i. e., subjects of only one member (F2 Second Folio): III 3, 2. F2: ake. Tempest. = Gonz.: "My old bones akes." V 1, 16. Ariel: "His teares runs downe his beard like winters drops." "There is pretty orders beginning I can tell you." III 2, 20. F2: are. Comedy of Errors. Luc.: Ill deeds is doubled with an euil word." IV 4, 80. Drom. of Eph.: "My bones beares witnesse." F2: beare. V 1, 85-86. Abbess: "Thy iealous fits Hath scar'd thy husband from the use of wits." F2: Have. Much Ado about Nothing. I 2, 7. Ant.: "As the euents stamps them." F2: "As the euent stamps them." Love's Labour's Lost. V 2, 374. Biron: "Your wits makes wise things foolish." F2: "Your wit makes", &c. A Midsummer-Night's Dream. IV 1, 85. Titania. "Oh, how mine eyes doth loath this visage now!" Merchant of Venice. I 3, 162-164. Shylock: "O father Abram, what these Christians are, F2: "dealing teaches." |