Richard III (3 page)

Act and Scene Divisions
were provided in the Folio in a much more thoroughgoing way than in the Quartos. Sometimes, however, they were erroneous or omitted; corrections and additions supplied by editorial tradition are indicated by square brackets. Five-act division is based on a classical model, and act breaks provided the opportunity to replace the candles in the indoor Blackfriars playhouse which the King’s Men used after 1608, but Shakespeare did not necessarily think in terms of a five-part structure of dramatic composition. The Folio convention is that a scene ends when the stage is empty. Nowadays, partly under the influence of film, we tend to consider a scene to be a dramatic unit that ends with either a change of imaginary location or a significant passage of time within the narrative. Shakespeare’s fluidity of composition accords well with this convention, so in addition to act and scene numbers we provide a
running
scene
count in the right margin at the beginning of each new scene, in the typeface used for editorial directions. Where there is a scene break caused by a momentary bare stage, but the location does not change and extra time does not pass, we use the convention
running scene continues
.
There is inevitably a degree of editorial judgment in making such calls, but the system is very valuable in suggesting the pace of the plays.

Speakers’ Names
are often inconsistent in Folio. We have regularized speech headings, but retained an element of deliberate inconsistency in entry directions, in order to give the flavor of Folio. For the sake of clarity,
RICHARD
is always so-called in his speech headings, though in the first half of the play he is sometimes addressed as “Gloucester” and in the Folio text of the second half some of his speeches are headed
“King.”

Verse
is indicated by lines that do not run to the right margin and by capitalization of each line. The Folio printers sometimes set verse as prose, and vice versa (either out of misunderstanding or for reasons of space). We have silently corrected in such cases, although in some instances there is ambiguity, in which case we have leaned toward the preservation of Folio layout. Folio sometimes uses contraction (“turnd” rather than “turnèd”) to indicate whether or not the final “-ed” of a past participle is sounded, an area where there is variation for the sake of the five-beat iambic pentameter rhythm. We use the convention of a grave accent to indicate sounding (thus “turnèd” would be two syllables), but would urge actors not to overstress. In cases where one speaker ends with a verse half line and the next begins with the other half of the pentameter, editors since the late eighteenth century have indented the second line. We have abandoned this convention, since the Folio does not use it, and nor did actors’ cues in the Shakespearean theater. An exception is made when the second speaker actively interrupts or completes the first speaker’s sentence.

Spelling
is modernized, but older forms are occasionally maintained where necessary for rhythm or aural effect.

Punctuation
in Shakespeare’s time was as much rhetorical as grammatical. “Colon” was originally a term for a unit of thought in an argument. The semicolon was a new unit of punctuation (some of the Quartos lack them altogether). We have modernized punctuation throughout, but have given more weight to Folio punctuation than many editors, since, though not Shakespearean, it reflects the usage of his period. In particular, we have used the colon far more than many editors: it is exceptionally useful as a way of indicating how many Shakespearean speeches unfold clause by clause in a developing argument that gives the illusion of enacting the process of thinking in the moment. We have also kept in mind the origin of punctuation in classical times as a way of assisting the actor and orator: the comma suggests the briefest of pauses for breath, the colon a middling one, and a full stop or period a longer pause. Semicolons, by contrast, belong to an era of punctuation that was only just coming in during Shakespeare’s time and that is coming to an end now: we have accordingly only used them where they occur in our copy texts (and not always then). Dashes are sometimes used for parenthetical interjections where the Folio has brackets. They are also used for interruptions and changes in train of thought. Where a change of addressee occurs within a speech, we have used a dash preceded by a full stop (or occasionally another form of punctuation). Often the identity of the respective addressees is obvious from the context. When it is not, this has been indicated in a marginal stage direction.

Entrances and Exits
are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g. “[
and Attendants
]”).
Exit
is sometimes silently normalized to
Exeunt
and
Manet
anglicized to “remains.” We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors.

Editorial Stage Directions
such as stage business, asides, indications of addressee and of characters’ position on the gallery stage are only used sparingly in Folio. Other editions mingle directions of this kind with original Folio and Quarto directions, sometimes marking them by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as
directorial
interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing them in the right margin in a smaller typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as an
Aside?
(often a line may be equally effective as an aside or a direct address—it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or a
may exit
or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.

Line Numbers
are editorial, for reference and to key the explanatory and textual notes.

Explanatory Notes
explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to nonstandard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g. legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.

Textual Notes
at the end of the play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign, with “Q” indicating that it derives from the First Quarto and “Ed” that it derives from the editorial tradition. The rejected Folio (“F”) reading is then given. Thus, for example, at 2.1.108
“at
= Q. F = and” means that the Folio compositor erroneously printed “and,” which does not make sense in context, so we have adopted Quarto “at.”

MAJOR PARTS:
(
with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage
) Richard III/Duke of Gloucester (32%/301/14), Duke of Buckingham (10%/91/11), Queen Elizabeth (7%/98/6), Queen Margaret (6%/33/2), George, Duke of Clarence (5%/33/3), Lady Anne (5%/51/3), Lord Hastings (4%/47/8), Duchess of York (4%/43/4), Henry, Earl of Richmond (4%/14/3), Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby (3%/32/9), King Edward IV (2%/ll/l), Sir William Catesby (2%/31/9), Earl Rivers (2%/24/5), Edward, Prince of Wales (l%/19/2), Richard, Duke of York (l%/21/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM:
98% verse, 2% prose.

DATE:
1592? 1594? Must follow the
Henry VI
plays, so perhaps written shortly before the theaters were closed due to plague in June 1592. Alteration of the chronicle sources to flatter Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby, has led some scholars to suppose that the play was written for the acting company of Lord Strange’s Men, active at this time, whose patron was Stanley’s descendant. Alternatively, Shakespeare might have been writing for Pembroke’s Men in 1592: the text also includes brief praise of the Pembroke family name. Some scholars, by contrast, suppose the play to be Shakespeare’s first work for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the company formed after the post-plague reopening of the theaters in summer 1594. Support for this view might come from the way in which the play was clearly written as a showcase for Richard Burbage, the Chamberlain’s leading man.

SOURCES:
The main source for the representation of Richard as a hunchbacked villain is Sir Thomas More’s
History of King Richard III
(c.1513). Since More was writing at the court of King Henry VIII, son of Henry VII, who defeated Richard at Bosworth Field, he had a vested interest in portraying Richard as unfavorably as possible. He got much of his information from Bishop Morton of Ely, a bitter enemy of Richard. More’s account was incorporated in the major Tudor chronicles; Shakespeare probably read it via Edward Hall’s
Union of the Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York
(1548). He may also have consulted Holinshed and one or more other chronicles. The historical poem sequence known as
The Mirror for Magistrates
(1559, expanded 1563) seems to have shaped Shakespeare’s treatment of the Clarence plot. The relationship to an anonymous drama
The True Tragedie of Richard the Third
(registered for publication June 1594, poorly printed) is unclear: it seems to have been an older play, belonging to the Queen’s Men, that was perhaps published to cash in on the success of Shakespeare’s version.

TEXT:
Quarto edition, 1597, with title advertising the content of the play:
The Tragedy of King Richard the third. Containing, His treacherous Plots against his brother Clarence: the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes: his tyrannicall vsurpation: with the whole course of his detested life, and most deserued death. As it hath beene lately Acted by the Right honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants
. Reprinted 1598, with Shakespeare’s name on the title page (one of the first printed plays to be so attributed), and again in 1602, 1605, 1612, 1622, 1629, 1634, indicating the play’s popularity. Each Quarto was reprinted from the last, with some errors and occasional editorial correction. The 1623 Folio text derives from an independent manuscript that differed substantially from the Quarto tradition, though the Sixth Quarto and to a lesser extent the Third Quarto were consulted in its preparation. There has been much scholarly debate over the sources and relationship of the two texts: their relationship and relative authority has been justifiably described as the most difficult textual problem in all Shakespeare. It appears that the Folio, though printed much later, reflects an earlier version of the play. The Folio text is about 200 lines longer than the Quarto, a difference more probably due to Quarto cutting and streamlining than Folio expansion. The Quarto has just under 40 lines that are not in Folio. There are hundreds of variants of wording. The Folio text is generally more coherent; some of the difficulties of the Quarto have been attributed to “memorial reconstruction” by actors, but current scholarship questions this view. Though Folio has many deficiencies, some imported from the Quarto tradition and others introduced by the compositors, it requires less editorial intervention to render it comprehensible and theatrically workable. It has been the copy text for most, though not all, scholarly editions, as it is for ours, in accordance with our Folio-based policy.

Clarence’s children