The Queen Mab Speech in ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Summary

Scholars are now generally agreed that Q1 of Romeo and Juliet (1597) is a bad Quarto which represents a memorial reconstruction of the play, and that Q2 (1599) is a good Quarto based at first or second hand on Shakespeare’s foul papers. If this is so, however, we must then recognize that ‘the bad text seems a good deal better and the good text a good deal worse, than we are accustomed to find’. The superiority of Q1 in many readings has been recognized by most editors since Pope, and not only such standard eclectic texts as the old Cambridge or Oxford, but even recent editions founded on strict bibliographical principles, admit many words, even whole lines, solely on its authority. Moreover, it is clear that the occasional surprising goodness of Q1 and surprising badness of Q2 cannot be explained simply by the varying competence or carefulness of the compositors of the two Quartos. There is unmistakeable evidence that the presumed Shakespearian manuscript which served as copy for Q2 was ‘in a state of unusual disorder’, often virtually illegible and possibly lacking a continuous passage of almost one hundred lines. And on the other hand, many sections of Q1, especially in acts I and II, seem to be so remarkably accurate as to make it necessary that we assume either that the reporter was gifted with an extraordinary memory and an almost infallible metrical sense, or that he had some access to an authoritative manuscript.