An editor of Measure for Measure has only one text to go upon, that of the Folio, and he could wish for a better. In places, not a few, it is ‘maimed and deformed’ beyond all hope of recovery, while its corruption frequently suggests the carelessness of some hasty transcriber concerned to catch the general sense but scarcely to preserve verbal accuracy. At the same time, it offers problems to the bibliographical detective of quite exceptional interest and complexity. No complete solution of these problems can be offered here, but we shall attempt a provisional survey and hope to throw light upon at least two critical moments in the history of the Measure for Measure manuscript.

I. Abridgment. The first thing we have to notice is that the received text is full of the usual indications of drastic abridgment. Broken lines and irregularly arranged passages abound in the verse-scenes, while in places, more particularly in 2. 4., the ‘cuts’ have left the text obscure. Two typical pieces of evidence of another kind may here be glanced at:

(i) Abridgment, as we found in The Tempest (p. 79) and The Two Gentlemen (p. 81), is likely to affect the dramatis personae. The present text provides us with two ‘ghosts’: a mysterious Justice, who sits silent throughout most of the long scene 2. 1. and is given only ten words to say at the very end, and the equally mysterious Varrius, who suddenly crops up for no ostensible reason in 4. 5.