Executive Director's Notes:
In addition to the notes below, and so you will *NOT* think all the spelling errors introduced by the printers of the time have been corrected, here are the first few lines of Hamlet, as they are presented herein:
Barnardo. Who's there? Fran. Nay answer me: Stand & vnfold your selfe
Bar. Long liue the King
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As I understand it, the printers often ran out of certain words or letters they had often packed into a "cliche". . .this is the original meaning of the term cliche. . .and thus, being unwilling to unpack the cliches, and thus you will see some substitutions that look very odd. . .such as the exchanges of u for v, v for u, above. . .and you may wonder why they did it this way, presuming Shakespeare did not actually write the play in this manner. . . .
The answer is that they MAY have packed "liue" into a cliche at a time when they were out of "v"'s. . .possibly having used "vv" in place of some "w"'s, etc. This was a common practice of the day, as print was still quite expensive, and they didn't want to spend more on a wider selection of characters than they had to.
You will find a lot of these kinds of "errors" in this text, as I have mentioned in other times and places, many "scholars" have an extreme attachment to these errors, and many have accorded them a very high place in the "canon" of Shakespeare. My father read an assortment of these made available to him by Cambridge University in England for several months in a glass room constructed for the purpose. To the best of my knowledge he read ALL those available . . .in great detail. . .and determined from the various changes, that Shakespeare most likely did not write in nearly as many of a variety of errors we credit him for, even though he was in/famous for signing his name with several different spellings.
So, please take this into account when reading the comments below made by our volunteer who prepared this file: you may see errors that are "not" errors. . . .
So. . .with this caveat. . .we have NOT changed the canon errors, here is the Project Gutenberg Etext of Shakespeare's play.
Michael S. Hart Project Gutenberg Executive Director
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Scanner's Notes:
What this is and isn't. This was taken from a copy of Shakespeare's first folio and it is as close as I can come in ASCII to the printed text.
The elongated S's have been changed to small s's and the conjoined ae have been changed to ae. I have left the spelling, punctuation, capitalization as close as possible to the printed text. I have corrected some spelling mistakes (I have put together a spelling dictionary devised from the spellings of the Geneva Bible and Shakespeare's First Folio and have unified spellings according to this template), typo's and expanded abbreviations as I have come across them. Everything within brackets [] is what I have added. So if you don't like that you can delete everything within the brackets if you want a purer Shakespeare.
Another thing that you should be aware of is that there are textual differences between various copies of the first folio. So there may be differences (other than what I have mentioned above) between this and other first folio editions. This is due to the printer's habit of setting the type and running off a number of copies and then proofing the printed copy and correcting the type and then continuing the printing run. The proof run wasn't thrown away but incorporated into the printed copies. This is just the way it is. The text I have used was a composite of more than 30 different First Folio editions' best pages.
David Reed
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The Tragedie of Julius Caesar
Actus Primus. Scoena Prima.
Enter Flauius, Murellus, and certaine Commoners ouer the Stage.
Flauius. Hence: home you idle Creatures, get you home: Is this a Holiday? What, know you not (Being Mechanicall) you ought not walke Vpon a labouring day, without the signe Of your Profession? Speake, what Trade art thou? Car. Why Sir, a Carpenter
Mur. Where is thy Leather Apron, and thy Rule? What dost thou with thy best Apparrell on? You sir, what Trade are you? Cobl. Truely Sir, in respect of a fine Workman, I am but as you would say, a Cobler
Mur. But what Trade art thou? Answer me directly
Cob. A Trade Sir, that I hope I may vse, with a safe Conscience, which is indeed Sir, a Mender of bad soules
Fla. What Trade thou knaue? Thou naughty knaue, what Trade? Cobl. Nay I beseech you Sir, be not out with me: yet if you be out Sir, I can mend you
Mur. What mean'st thou by that? Mend mee, thou sawcy Fellow? Cob. Why sir, Cobble you
Fla. Thou art a Cobler, art thou? Cob. Truly sir, all that I liue by, is with the Aule: I meddle with no Tradesmans matters, nor womens matters; but withal I am indeed Sir, a Surgeon to old shooes: when they are in great danger, I recouer them. As proper men as euer trod vpon Neats Leather, haue gone vpon my handy-worke
Fla. But wherefore art not in thy Shop to day? Why do'st thou leade these men about the streets? Cob. Truly sir, to weare out their shooes, to get my selfe into more worke. But indeede sir, we make Holyday to see Caesar, and to reioyce in his Triumph
Mur. Wherefore reioyce? What Conquest brings he home? What Tributaries follow him to Rome, To grace in Captiue bonds his Chariot Wheeles? You Blockes, you stones, you worse then senslesse things: O you hard hearts, you cruell men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey many a time and oft? Haue you climb'd vp to Walles and Battlements, To Towres and Windowes? Yea, to Chimney tops, Your Infants in your Armes, and there haue sate The liue-long day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey passe the streets of Rome: And when you saw his Chariot but appeare, Haue you not made an Vniuersall shout, That Tyber trembled vnderneath her bankes To heare the replication of your sounds, Made in her Concaue Shores? And do you now put on your best attyre? And do you now cull out a Holyday? And do you now strew Flowers in his way, That comes in Triumph ouer Pompeyes blood? Be gone, Runne to your houses, fall vpon your knees, Pray to the Gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this Ingratitude
