APPENDIX D
The Text of the Present Edition
The text of the present volume is, by permission of the Oxford University Press, that of the Oxford Shakespeare, edited by the late W. J. Craig, except for the following deviations:
1. The stage directions of the First Folio have been restored, necessary modern additions being enclosed in square brackets. Passages of text for which the Folio offers no equivalent are similarly bracketed.
2. Many minor changes in punctuation have been made, and the spelling of certain words normalized in accordance with English usage; e.g. everything, swoll'n, villainy. The old forms, murther, murtherer, etc., which occur in the Folio beside murder, murderer, etc., have been retained.
3. The following alterations, most of them reversions to the readings of the First Folio, have been made in the text, the reading of the present text preceding the colon, and that of Craig following it:
I. i. 108 sons F: son
126 T'appease F: to appease
154 grudges F: drugs
487 sware F: swore
II. i. 25 Hollo! F: Holla!
iii. 55 whom F: who
126 braves F: she braves
iv. 17 Hath F: have
III. i. 12 these, tribunes F: these, these, tribunes
36 And bootless,: All bootless
225 flow F: blow
259 my F: thy
ii. 9 Who, when F: And when
60 'But!' How, if that fly had a father and mother?: But how if that fly had a father and a mother?
85 begin F: begins