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EDITOR'S NOTE

The present text aims to be an exact reproduction of that in the Yale Library copy of folio 1616, the pagination of which is here inserted in brackets. In selecting variant readings from other editions, I have ignored changes in spelling, punctuation, capitals, and italics except when they seemed, whether with or without design, to affect the editor's or the reader's interpretation. Certain usages of particular editions may be treated en bloc. Whalley follows the quarto in not naming the act except with its first scene; Gifford and Nicholson disregard the folio division into acts and scenes, which is based upon dramatic situations, and determine all by the place of the action. Whalley usually retains the () of folio 1616, but sometimes substitutes commas; Gifford and Nicholson regularly prefer commas. The conjunction then, of 1616, regularly becomes than in subsequent editions. And if regularly becomes an' in Whalley, and an in succeeding editions. Whalley regularly changes 'hem to 'em; Gifford, to them; while Nicholson regularly preserves the 1616 form. The interjection I becomes ay in Gifford and Nicholson. It is Gifford's general practice to expand abbreviated words, even at the cost of metrical awkwardness; but Nicholson resorts to frequent elision and syncope in order to secure regularity of metre.

In our Variants, all stage directions not definitely placed are supposed to stand after the lines indicated by number. A plus sign following the designation of an edition-e. g. 1640+ — is equivalent to and all subsequent editions (or editors).

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N = Nicholson's (Mermaid) edition of 1893

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