THE TEXT OF HENRY V

Summary

THE COPY FOR HENRY V, 1623, AND FOR THE QUARTO OF 1600

As already stated, two texts of Shakespeare's Henry V have come down to us: that included in the First Folio of 1623, and a ‘bad’ Quarto published in 1600. It is now coming to be agreed that the folio text was set up from a manuscript in Shakespeare's hand, probably the draft, or, as the phrase then was, the foul papers, from which the acting copy was prepared under the prompter's direction. The absence of act and scene divisions (for the folio act-headings have obviously been clumsily inserted by some editorial or publisher's scribe), the carelessness in regard to names or places (v. notes 3 Prol. 4; 3. 2.45; 4.1.94; 5. 2.12), the characteristic spellings (v. notes 2. 3. 24, 30, 33; 3. 2. 131; 4. 1. 3, 177; 4. 2. 11; 4. 8 . 1 2 3; 5. 2. 139), the very misprints, many of which can readily be explained as misreadings of Shakespearian script (v. notes 2. 1. 23; 2. 2.139; 2. 4. 107; 3 . 1 . 32; 3.4.10; 3. 7.12; 4 Prol. 16; 4. 2. 60; 4. 4. 6y, 4. 8.100)–all point to Shakespeare's pen. Yet his papers cannot have been very ‘foul’ inasmuch as the text is a comparatively clean one and its punctuation quite surprisingly good. It is in fact the best and most fully pointed text I have yet encountered in this edition; and if A. W. Pollard is right in accounting for the light and scanty punctuation of Q. Richard II, by supposing that it was printed from a manuscript which Shakespeare wrote ‘at top speed’, perhaps the mood in which he composed Henry V was more deliberate.