Stubbes P. Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses (1583; repr. Amsterdam and New York, 1972)

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  Taylor & Jowett G. Taylor and J. Jowett, Shakespeare Reshaped, 1606–1623 (Oxford, 1993)

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  Thiselton-Dyer T. F. Thiselton-Dyer, Folk-Lore of Shakespeare (New York, 1884, repr. 1966)

  Thompson A. Thompson, Shakespeare’s Chaucer: A Study in Literary Origins (Liverpool, 1978)

  Thompson, ‘Jailers’ A. Thompson, ‘Jailers’ Daughters in The Arcadia and The Two Noble Kinsmen’, N & Q, 224 (1979), 140–1

  Thompson & Taylor A. Thompson and N. Taylor, Appendix 5: ‘Casting’ in William Shakespeare, Hamlet (London, 2006)

  Thompson & Thompson A. and J. O. Thompson, Shakespeare: Meaning and Metaphor (Brighton and Iowa City, Ia., 1987)

  Thomson L. Thomson, ‘A quarto “marked for performance”: evidence of what?’, Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, 8 (1996), 176–210

  Thorn-Drury G. Thorn-Drury (ed.), Covent Carden Drollery (1928)

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  PROLOGUE

  PROLOGUE 1 SD Flourish fanfare of trumpets or cornets, usually accompanying entrance or exit

  2 followed sought after

  3 stand, sound, well sexual puns, referring to male potency and to freedom (male or female) from venereal disease

  4 scenes the entire content of the play. Taylor suggests (TxC, 630) that his, in 4 and 5, is a misreading of hir (her). But ‘his’ was still the standard neutral possessive: it seems in keeping with the sexual imagery just noted, which is both male and female, that the play should be imagined as male but compared to a bride about to lose her virginity (honour).

  5 shake to lose tremble at the prospect of losing

  6 holy tie wedding

  stir activity, especially sexual

  7 Modesty the personification of modesty. A good play retains its freshness, as a good wife still looks like a virgin after the first night.

  8 pains endeavours

  9 I am probably pronounced I’m, as printed in F. For elisions.

  10 breeder father. Chaucer’s own purity is a guarantee of the purity of his offspring.

  11 went existed; ‘literally, “walked”’ (Oxf1)

  * * *

  PROLOGUE 0.1 Enter … Prologue] Oxf subst.; not in Q 9 I am] Q; I’m F

  12 Po … Trent rivers in northern Italy and northern England, used as a shorthand for the civilized world. The Po is mentioned because of the famous Latin and Italian poets who were Chaucer’s sources.

  13 gives Perhaps, continuing the opening image, he gives it in marriage, as the father gives the bride.

  14 There i.e., in his works (Craik)

  constant to eternity married to eternity; i.e., immortal

  15 let fall fail to live up to

  the nobleness of this the tale’s noble ancestry

  18–19 fan … chaff Chaff was removed from corn with a winnowing fan; metaphorically, it is worthless rubbish.

  19 writer Though wrighter, the Q spelling, is common (and found in Fletcher’s part-holograph verse letter to the Countess of Huntingdon), it may imply that such a figure is, like the ‘playwright, cartwright’ Webster (see Bradbrook, Webster, 169), only a hack. The singular form has been taken as evidence against collaborative authorship (Lawrence, 450) but, given the needs of rhyme, it should not be pushed too far. Montgomery suggests that such a wrighter means ‘any writer who’ (TxC, 626). For a similiar confusion of ‘parents’ and ‘Author’ in early editions of KBP, see Masten, 346–8.

  20 blasts my bays ‘destroys my laurel wreath’, the symbol of poetic fame, which was supposed to protect one from being ‘blasted’ by lightning

  21 Robin Hood ‘a Tale of Robin Hood’, proverbially, an unbelievable and trivial story. Waith (Oxf1) cites ‘Tales of Robin Hood are good for fools’ (Dent, T53).

  22 endless both never-ending and useless (without an end or purpose)

  24 Weak as we are Some editors begin a new sentence at this point. While we refers mainly to the actors, the sense of inadequacy refers mainly to their play and thus perhaps to the writer(s). I take swim to be an infinitive, parallel to aspire, and repunctuate accordingly.

  swim i.e., sail (used metaphorically of the boat). It may also refer literally to the actors’ sense of themselves as out of their depth (see 26n.).

  * * *

  24 and,] this edn; and Q breathless,] this edn; breathless Q

  25–6 Do … hands a conventional request for applause; cf. ‘Lend us but half a hand’ (Dekker and Webster, Westward Ho! (1604), 5.4.309–18) and ‘With the help of your good hands’ in the Tempest Epilogue. For other examples of the play as a sea voyage, see Berry (16). Masten (339–40) compares the many ‘hands’ involved in a work of theatrical collaboration. RA notes how many helping hands appear in the play from 1.1 (where they assist the queens to rise) to Arcite’s ‘Reach thy hand’ (5.4.91).

  25 Do but you please

  26 tack about change the direction of the sails to keep a straight course. ‘The wind is here imagined as being produced by applause’ (Proudfoot). Q reads take about; as Bowers notes, F’s tack is an alternative spelling, also found in 3.4.10 and 4.1.152. Littledale notes a parallel with Fletcher’s The Loyal Subject: ‘tack about for honour’ (3.2.53). The shift from swimming to sailing in the speaker’s language may be simple inconsistency. Or swim and sail may be used interchangeably, each as a figure for the other; thus, take/tack might refer to the change of direction which will bring the breathless actors towards their helpers, either on shore or in the theatre audience. The image of swimming recurs in 1.2.7–12; that of sailing in difficult waters in the Daughter’s fantasies, 3.4.5–11 and 4.1.141–52.

  28 may that may

  29 two hours’ travel metaphorical: the journey through the play. Some editors emend to travail; the word clearly means both journey and labour. Littledale cites other references to two (or three) hours as the normal duration of a performance; the best known is the Prologue to RJ.

  29–30 To … you The implied verb is ‘we wish’.

  31 dull time ‘period of slack trade’ (Proudfoot).

  32 Our losses primarily, financial disasters

  leave cease, ‘give up acting’ (Leech)

  * * *

  26 tack] 1711; take Q 29 travel] Q; travail Dyce 30 keep] 1778; keep, Q 32 SD Exit.] Oxf; not in Q 1.1] Actus Primus. Q 0.1 Music.] after The Song. 1 SD Q

  1.1

  1.1 In Boccaccio and KT this episode occurs just outside Athens, near the temple of Clemency, and the suppliant women speak only to Theseus. He and Hippolyta have already been married for some time.

  0.1 HYMEN His costume (see List of Roles) would have made him recognizable as the classical god of marriage and thus clarified the purpose of the opening procession. Waith (Oxf1) compares the elaborate reconstruction of a classical wedding in Jonson’s Hymenaei (1606).

  0.2 before in front of Hymen. SDs at the beginning of a scene usually list characters in order of entrance. Perhaps the song was a late addition to the scene.

  0.3 Nymph strictly, a nature spirit, but often used, as here, to mean any young woman in generalized fancy dress (see List of Roles)

  encompassed … tresses with her hair hanging loose as a token of virginity

  0.3–0.4 wheaten garland associated with peace in Ham 5.2.41. Here, it is a symbol of ‘fertility, but also virginity’ (Proudfoot compares 64, below and 5.1.160).

  0.5 chaplets garlands

  the bride i.e., dressed as a bride

  0.6 another vague, because the details of the procession would have been worked out in rehearsal rather than in the writing process. Since the bridegroom enters between two women, the bride is probably led between two men. At the royal wedding in February 1613 Princess Elizabeth was led between her brother and her uncle. The likeliest supporter for Hippolyta is Artesius, named only at 159.

  0.6–0.7 her tresses Hippolyta’s

  0.7–0.8 EMILIA … train Princess Elizabeth’s train was carried by at least fourteen ladies (Nichols, 2.543); that only Emilia is available for this task shows the demand for boy actors in this production.

  1 SD Q prints the direction for music in the margin opposite the song, and the opening SD seems to indicate that the boy enters singing these words.

  1–12 The flowers mentioned in the song belong to different times of the year. For Littledale’s edition of the play the New Shakspere Society’s editor, F. J. Furnivall, invited the comments of two botanists. One (R. C. A. Prior) felt that ‘the writer did not know much about plants’; the other (W. Whale) noted that ‘The flowers named may be all called Spring-flowers, but of course some blowing rather later than others.’

  1 spines thorns. The thornless rose symbolizes perfection; compare later images of roses at 2.2.135–43 and 5.1.163–71.

  2–3 royal … hue scarlet or ‘purple’ (which, as Waith, Oxf1, points out, is red), colours traditionally reserved for royalty

  * * *

  0.6 PIRITHOUS] Seward (Theobald); Theseus Q 0.8 Artesius … musicians] Weber; not in Q 1 SD] Bawcutt; The Song. Musike. Q

  4 Maiden pinks ‘i.e., fresh pinks, also used for strewing upon the grave of a maiden or a faithful wife’ (Skeat, who quotes Queen Katherine’s request that her corpse be strewed with ‘maiden flowers’ (H8 4.2.168))

  5 Furnivall (Spalding, p. v) could not believe that Shakespeare would have nothing better than this to say about Chaucer’s favourite flower (see Prologue to Legend of Good Women, 40–3). The qualified phrasing may recall ‘violets, dim, / But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes’ (WT 4.4.120–1), especially in conjunction with dim in 9.

  quaint trim, neat

  6 thyme Q’s spelling, Time, brings out the pun: time, proverbially, is the test of truth (see Dent, T324, T329a, T338, T580). Littledale quotes ‘Time is to trie me’ from ‘A Nosegaie always sweet’ in A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584), which gives symbolic meanings to a number of flowers.

  7 Ver spring

  8 harbinger forerunner, herald

  9 *harebells wild hyacinth, or scilla nutens (bluebells). Skeat’s emendation has been generally accepted, because primroses do not resemble bells, though Littledale argues that bells has the general sense of ‘blossoms’.

  dim dusky (because they grow in shady places)

  10 Oxlips related to the primrose; Gerard’s Herbal (635–8) groups them together.

  in … growing ‘The growth of the leaves would certainly give one an idea of the stem and Oxlip flowers being lodged in a cradle [?saucer]’ (Prior (see 1n.)).

  11 Gerard’s Herbal says nothing about this characteristic, but Rolfe suggests that death beds could mean graves: Skeat compares ‘marigolds / Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave / While summer-days do last’ (Per 4.1.16). RP quotes the anon. How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad (1602), where a man who wishes his wife were dead calls his second choice a marigold that would grow ‘From out her grave’ (sig. E1). The contrast between 10 and 11 creates a cycle of birth and death, like the more extended passage in WT 4.4.73ff.

  12 Lark’s-heels flos regius, or larkspur trim neat

  * * *

  6 thyme] (Time) Q 7 Primrose, first-born] Seward; Prim-rose first borne, Q 9 harebells] Skeat; her bels Q 12 SD] Strew / Flowers. / after 14–15 Q 13–14 sweet / Lie] sweete-/ Ly Q

  14 *Lie ‘This verb [lie] is the first that has yet occurred, and agrees with all the preceding nominatives’ (Skeat). Whether it is a subjunctive, inviting the flowers to lie before the couple, or a present indicative (Bawcutt takes it in conjunction with is in 18), or an imperative (Oxf1), can be clarified in performance only by choosing whether the boy should enter strewing flowers or begin strewing them now, as Q’s SD indicates.

  15 pleasing all their senses

  16 *angel Q has angle (according to Bowers, a ‘rare spelling’ of angel, to which it was changed in the 1679 Folio). Chaucer uses waryangles (Friar’s Tale, 1408) and Speght’s 1602 edition glosses it as ‘birds full of noise’. Lists of birds, as of flowers, are traditional in wedding poems. Spenser’s Epithalamion urges his bride to awake to the sweet singing of the birds (78–85) and wishes the birds of ill omen far away from the bridal bed (345–8). The wedding of Elizabeth and Frederick took place on Valentine’s Day 1613, and several poems written for the occasion, Donne’s and Heywood’s among them, refer to St Valentine’s marrying the birds on that day (see also MND 4.1.139–40).

  19–24 ‘Is the epithalamium broken off by the entrance of the Queens?’ (Walker, 3.340). Masefield (191) suggests that the last stanza is a ‘defence or exorcism to be sung in a very different mood and key, to avert the evil omen of the three approaching figures in black’.

  19 sland’rous cuckoo because its cry told every man that he was a cuckold (see LLL 5.2.910 and MND 3.1.136)

  20 boding prophesying evil fortune. Cf. ‘I would croak like a raven, I would bode, I would bode’ (TC 5.2.181–2).

  *chough hoar a jackdaw, which has a grey (or hoary) head; see Harting 115–19.