Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by RICHARD GRANT WHITE. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. Presswork by John Wilson and Son. "THE Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the beginning of their loues, with the conceited wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia. Written by William Shakespeare. LONDON Imprinted by G. Eld for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and are to be sold at the spred Eagle in Paules Church-yeard, ouer against the great North doore. 1609." 4to. 46 leaves. "THE Historie of Troylus and Cresseida. the Kings Maiesties seruants at the Globe. Shakespeare. LONDON Imprinted by G. Eld for R. Bonian and H. Walley, and are to be sold at the spred Eagle in Paules Church-yeard, ouer against the great North doore. 1609." 4to. 45 leaves. As it was acted by Written by William The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida occupies twenty-eight pages, in the folio of 1623. Its pages are not numbered, except the third and fourth, which are numbered "79" and "80." The reverse of its twenty-eighth page is blank. It is not there divided into Acts and Scenes, and is without a list of Dramatis Personæ. The division was made and the list supplied by Rowe. (4) TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. INTRODUCTION. THE HE evidence as to the authorship of this play and the time when it was produced is somewhat peculiar. The publication both of the quarto and the folio impressions was attended by certain unusual and significant circumstances, which, combined with the diverse style of the play itself, have been heretofore made the subject of investigations so ingenious and so thorough, that to the present editor is left only the task of selecting from the labors of his not always accordant predecessors those passages which, in his judgment, present the conclusions warranted by the facts of the case. And first, as to the quarto impressions, Mr. Collier remarks: "The play was originally printed in 1609. It was formerly supposed that there were two editions in that year, but they were merely different issues of the same impression: the body of the work (with two exceptions, pointed out hereafter) is alike in each; they were from the types of the same printer, and were published by the same booksellers. The title-pages, as may be seen on the opposite leaf, vary materially; but there is another more remarkable alteration. On the title-page of the copies first circulated, it is not stated that the drama had been represented by any company; and in a sort of preface headed, A never Writer to an ever Reader. News,' it is asserted that it had never been staled with the stage, never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar;' in other words, that the play had not been acted.* This was probably then true; but as Troilus and Cressida' was very soon afterwards brought upon the stage, it became necessary for the publishers to substitute a new title-page, and to suppress their preface : accordingly a re-issue of the same edition took place, by the 6 * See this preface, or address, at the end of this Introduction. title-page of which it appeared, that the play was printed 'as it was acted by the King's Majesty's servants at the Globe.' "In the Stationers' Registers are two entries, of distinct dates, relating to a play, or plays, called Troilus and Cressida:' they are in the following terms: — 7 Feb. 1602-3 Mr. Roberts] The booke of Troilus and Cresseda, as yt is acted by my Lo. Chamberlens men.' 28 Jan. 1608-9 Rich. Bonion and Hen. Whalleys] Entered for their copie under t'hands of Mr. Segar Deputy to Sir Geo. Bucke, and Mr. Warden Lownes: A booke called the History of Troylus and Cressula.' * "The edition of 1609 was, doubtless, published in consequence of the entry of 28 Jan. 1608-9;' but if Roberts printed a Troilus and Cressida,' whether by Shakespeare or by any other dramatist, in consequence of the earlier entry of 7 Feb. 1602-3,' none such has come down to our time." In the Remarks on the Preliminary Matter to the Folio of 1623, (Vol. II. p. lxi.,) it has been already mentioned that Troilus and Cressida is omitted from the Catalogue of the Plays published in that volume; and in the Introduction to The Winter's Tale, (Vol. V. p. 275,) allusion has been made to the existence of typographical evidence in the folio that the player editors were in doubt as to the classification of both these plays. This evidence consists of the lack of paginal numbering, the use in each play of a series of signature marks peculiar to it, and as to the play before us, the omission, just mentioned, from the Catalogue. Hypothetical explanation of these circumstances was naturally sought; and the theory of the eighteenth century editors with regard to Troilus and Cressida is given in the following paragraph from Mr. Knight's Introduction to the play, together with his own ingenious and far more probable solution of the problem. "Steevens says, 'Perhaps the drama before us was not entirely of his (Shakspere's) construction. It appears to have been unknown to his associates, Hemings and Condell, till after the first folio was almost printed off." If the play had been unknown to Hemings and Condell, the notion that, for this * Attention was first directed to these entries by Malone, in his edition of Shakespeare, 1790, Vol. I. p. 342, and they are quoted in the Variorum of 1821, pp. 639 and 639- the paging 639, 640 being repeated instead of 641, 642. |