Volpone and Other Plays Read Online Free PDF Page B

press by Jonson himself; that of
Bartholomew Fair
is based upon the posthumous Second Folio (1640), sheets of which Jonson may have seen and partly corrected before his death.
    Jonson took great pains to see that his play-scripts were accurately presented to the Jacobean reader, and he adopted a standard method for the printing of the plays. Like other Elizabethan dramatists he did not give locations for his scenes save for a general indication that the action was set in London or in Venice. His practice was to start off at Act 1 Scene 1, and usually to begin a new scene (Scene II, Scene III, etc.) at the entrance of another character, a style which never became standard for printing plays in England as it did in France. At the head of each scene he listed the characters appearing in it:
Subtle. Face. Dol. Mammon
., etc. The first-named character is always the first speaker, and Jonson never gave any further attribution of the opening speech. He didnot indicate the precise point at which a character enters or exits when these entrances or exits do not mark the beginning or end of a scene. He gave few stage-directions (save for
Bartholomew Fair
, where the largeness of the cast and the ‘busy’ action seems to have made stage-directions more necessary), and these were always printed in the margin. The following conventions have been used in this edition:
SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION
    The spelling has been modernized throughout, as has the punctuation, to make the sense clear to the modern reader. Thus I print
murder
where Jonson used
murther, venture
for his
venter
(save where rhyme has to be preserved), and so on. Obvious misprints have been silendy corrected. The minor emendations and corrections which are standard in modern editions have likewise been silently included, but, where a new reading has been adopted from a recent scholarly edition, the fact has been recorded among the critical notes at the back. Jonson’s plays survive in an uncommonly good state, and I have not included a list of textual variants, knowing as I do that scholars and graduate-students who need access to the full bibliographical and textual apparatus will always prefer to use the Folios themselves, or the Oxford edition, or some other old-spelling reprint. In past participles Jonson’s
’d
has been extended to
ed
, and his
ed
has been stressed
èd
. Jonson’s
th’, i’, ha’, gi’
, etc. (for
the, in, have, give
, etc.) have been retained; they reflect the idiomatic usages and the pronunciation of his own day, and in dialect speeches especially they are necessary – and helpful – to the actor. The colloquial
an
(if), which Jonson spelt
and
or
an’
, has been spelt
an’
. Jonson habitually used italics for outlandish and technical words. These have usually been dispensed with. Capitals have sometimes been introduced for clarity or emphasis, and to guide the reader or the actor.
ACT-AND SCENE-DIVISION
    It would be pedantic to adhere rigidly to Jonson’s scene-divisions in a modern edition, especially as so much of the action in hiscomedies is continuous. Editorial scene-divisions have been made only when a change of location has to be indicated (see below), and all these are printed in square brackets: [ SCENE TWO ]. Jonson’s own scene-divisions have been retained in abbreviated form and placed towards the margin: 1, i, 1, ii, 1, iii, etc. The reader can thus appreciate at a glance the scenic structure of the comedies, while not experiencing the sense of a break in the action. Also, there is an advantage in preserving Jonson’s scene-divisions for students who wish to use this text while referring to the commentaries in, say, the Oxford edition. The running-titles throughout use the editorial scene-divisions, though square brackets are here dispensed with.
LOCATIONS AND STAGE-DIRECTIONS
    At the top of the first page of the original prompt-copy for the King’s Men’s