Mercury Versus Apollo: A Reading of Love's Labor's Lost

Abstract

N I598 Quarto, earliest extant text of Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, this, play's closing utterance, is set without speech-heading in a type conspicuously larger than that used in printing main part of play. words, appearing in this striking form, seem be extrinsic comment rather than integral part of dramatic presentation. Most modern editors have favored revised Folio ending, which incorporates this line into action, attributing it Armado, who adds, in conclusion, appropriate exit line, You that way: we this way. Two of more influential editions of recent years have, however, printed original conclusion. New Shakespeare editors did so, noting that idiosyncratic typographical presentation of First Quarto indicates not a further adventure of some perennially drunken but a firm intent. The compositor, they write, hardly have troubled take out a fresh case of type unless he had a strong heading in 'copy.'' Richard David, in his later Arden edition, follows suit, printing this last line alone, without speech-heading. In his introduction play, David suggests that Folio revisions could have been work of an intelligent prompter or stage-manager, who added a few words to make possible orderly Exeunt.2 Whether we take Heminges and Condell at their word or, alternatively, accept argument of Arden and New Shakespeare editors, crucial line remains. precise meaning of The words of and the songs of Apollo has never been established; they congeal only as a mote in interpreter's eye. E. K. Chambers would have no truck with line, asserting in choleric tone that Mercury has nothing do with what precedes.3 Other commentators have treated it as a functional device for bringing play abrupt halt after song of Spring and Winter, which could only be marred by a return prosaic medium of orator, Mercury.4 In this context, no more comprehensive reference is sought which could apply broader de-