King John & Henry VIII (4 page)

Entrances and Exits
are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g. “[
and Attendants
]”).
Exit
is sometimes silently normalized to
Exeunt
and
Manet
anglicized to “remains.” We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors.

Editorial Stage Directions
such as stage business, asides, indications of addressee and of characters’ position on the gallery stage are only used sparingly in Folio. Other editions mingle directions of this kind with original Folio and Quarto directions, sometimes marking them by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as
directorial
interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing in the right margin in a smaller typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as an
Aside?
(often a line may be equally effective as an aside or a direct address—it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or a
may exit
or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.

Line Numbers
are editorial, for reference and to key the explanatory and textual notes.

Explanatory Notes
explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to nonstandard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g. legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.

Textual Notes
at the end of the play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign. For
King John
, “F2” signifies a correction introduced in the Second Folio of 1632 and “Ed” an emendation from the subsequent editorial tradition. The rejected Folio (“F”) reading is then given. Thus, for example “
3.1.75 test
= Ed. F = tast. Ed = task” means that at Act 3 Scene 1 line 75 we have accepted the editorial reading “test” and rejected Folio’s “tast” in the lines “What earthy name to interrogatories / Can test the free breath of a sacred king?” We have also included the suggested editorial emendation “task” as an interestingly different alternative editorial reading. For
Henry VIII
, “F2” signifies a correction introduced in the Second Folio of 1632, “F3” a correction from the Third Folio of 1663–64, “F4” one from the Fourth Folio of 1685 and “Ed” a correction from the subsequent editorial tradition. Thus, “
4.2.8 think
= F2. F = thanke” means that at Act 4 Scene 2 line 8, we have accepted the Second Folio’s correction “think” and rejected the First Folio’s “thanke” in the lines “Yes, madam, but I think your grace, / Out of the pain you suffered, gave no ear to’t.”

THE LIFE AND DEATH
OF KING JOHN

MAJOR PARTS:
(
with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage
) Bastard (20%/89/11), King John (17%/95/9), Constance (10%/36/3), King Philip of France (7%/44/3), Hubert (6%/52/6), Salisbury (6%/36/6), Lewis the Dauphin (6%/28/5), Cardinal Pandulph (6%/23/4), Arthur (5%/23/5), Pembroke (3%/20/4), Queen Elinor (2%/22/4), Blanche (2%/9/2), Chatillon (2%/5/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM:
100% verse.

DATE:
1595–97? Mentioned by Meres 1598; close relationship to anonymous two-part play
The Troublesome Reign of King John
(published 1591), but stylistically much closer to later histories.

SOURCES:
Scholars dispute the play’s relationship to
The Troublesome Reign
: is it the principal source or a badly printed text of an early version of Shakespeare’s play? On balance, the evidence supports the view that it was an old play that Shakespeare reworked in his own vein (rather as he reworked other anonymously authored chronicle plays such as
The Famous Victories of Henry V
and
King Leir
). The third volume of the 1587 edition of Holinshed’s
Chronicles
is the primary historical source behind both the anonymous play and Shakespeare’s.

TEXT:
The two parts of
The Troublesome Reign
were reprinted together in 1611 with the title-page claim “Written by W. Sh.” (reprinted 1622 as “Written by W. Shakespeare”), but this was a sales ploy and not a reliable attribution. The only authoritative text is that in the First Folio. Scholars dispute the nature of the copy from which it was typeset; there is some evidence that it may have been the work of two scribes. There are a number of textual problems, most notably in the name of Hubert: this first appears halfway through Act 2 Scene 1 as speaker’s name for the citizen of Angiers
(who is initially an anonymous “
Cit
.”), but it is not used in the dialogue at this point, so the citizen is not identifiable by name to the audience. In the theater, “Hubert” is named for the first time when he swears loyalty to King John and is commissioned to imprison Arthur. Is the same person intended? Editors differ in their attempts to untangle this problem: we leave the question open by means of a marginal direction.

running scene 1

Enter
King John
,
Queen Elinor
, Pembroke, Essex and Salisbury, with the Chatillon of France

To Pembroke

Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke

Aside to John

Enter a Sheriff

He whispers to Essex