Romeo and Juliet: Third Series (The Arden Shakespeare Third Series): 13

Will there be a fourth Arden series? With luck the answer will be “No”. A future Jimmy Wales will provide, online, the basis for a “wiki” for Shakespeare Studies where we can see a tidy open source text; but with a click, reveal everything that even the best variorum can list; another click to see the text on its page in the original quartos or the folio; a rare look inside Johnson’s edition maybe? Pictures could be included of Charlton Hinman’s painstakingly assembled variants in the existing Folio pages; and an invitation to add your own comments. To discover that “presently” nowadays means “immediately” you might click the word or, even better, hover over it to see if you really want to know more. Some of the present Arden editions footnote the word “presently” every single time it crops up and it becomes ridiculous to see the same footnote a dozen times in the same play.In the constraints of space available for this Arden Romeo and Juliet, why is it that for 1.1.143 “importuned him” the footnote reads: “asked him persistently, pressed him for an answer”?Do we need at 1.1.195 “Tut”: “A mild exclamation of impatience”. I recall this word occurring regularly in The Beano without explication. This Arden might have really enlightened us to explain that “Tut tut” is not pronounced “tut tut” EVER, unless by people harking back to such reading matter ironically. “Tut” is a wetter sound made by the tongue; more like the “tsk” often preferred by the exasperated parents drawn for The Beezer.This Arden for some reason is very strong on marking words that the OED omnisciently declares as “first usage”. At 4.1.63 we find a first OED usage for the word “arbitrating”. As if responding by rote, René Weis amplifies this: “settling by arbitration”. At 3.3.16 “Be patient” is usefully glossed as “forebear.”This Romeo and Juliet includes a rather poor photocopy of the British Library Q1, which, as I write, can be viewed online in a far more effective format. It is a pity that Q1, Q2 and F1 are not printed as separate booklets. Reference to the actual texts is the best education of all. The Arden does all that can possibly be done, between two covers, to clarify the textual decisions it makes, but in fact the plays are obscured in the process. Some of the academic rigour of the second series seems to be missing.In Act 2, Scene 4, from lines 35 to 95, Romeo, after leaving Juliet for the first time, and after persuading Friar Laurence to agree to marry them; gets involved in some badinage to and fro with the filthy-minded Mercutio who “loves to hear himself talk”. The Arden makes no mention of the enlightening insights of H.C.Goddard: that Mercutio and also The Nurse are truly evil beings. It is Mercutio, after all, who is the instigator of the whole fiasco with Tybalt that wrecks everything; and it is done just for a laugh. Even with his final gasps he jokes: “I’ll be a grave man tomorrow.” The Arden tries valiantly to explicate the banter at this point. There are two words in this fraught and ultimately unfunny exchange. It must have been hilarious at the time, in the way that “knock knock” jokes were hilarious recently. Mercutio riffs on “sole” and “fish”; but the two words that Mercutio really thinks are so funny are “goose” and “pumps”. René Weis throws caution to the winds trying to explain that “pumps” means single-soled ballet shoes, and that coming so soon from the ball, Romeo must be joking about the floral decorations on his slippers.Mercutio refers to a “wild goose chase” which René glosses rather obviously as “take a wrong course”. Mercutio however is rather insistent: “Was I with you there for the goose?” he asks; meaning, “Did you get the joke?” I thought that there surely must be some early reference to “goosing about”. At the dictionary site [...] where there is a choice of twenty dictionaries all in one place, for the first time I read that “to goose” might mean to pinch a girl’s buttocks. The dictionary actually offers an option of “BETWEEN the buttocks” but to me, this surely is etymologically suspect; for a pinch to be effective there must needs be allowed room for the fingers to open.In the American dictionaries listed on this valuable site, were references to “goose the car” and a “gooseneck tailors’ iron”. Look it up. I’d never heard of these terms. Around 1550 when the word “pump” was first in use, it described a shoe without laces or buttons; a short boot or galoshes maybe. “Galoshes” is Old French but surely the word “SOUNDS” like a shoeful of water; even in French. The word “pump” described the SOUND of a loose shoe being worn. A sound, even when dry, like a water pump being belaboured. An accidental shoeful of water is a cause for merriment for young boys and tomboys. We called it “getting a booty”. A foot inside a wellington boot of water is all the physics required to create a pump anyway. If you press down hard enough the water will rise up between your legs.We are not able to laugh with Romeo and Mercutio but surely the joke is about this sound of sex and not about “ballet pumps”. Intimate knowledge of the village pump with its “goose neck handle” goes back a very long way and would be familiar back then; though this is no longer the case. When they say, “Goose the car,” it means pump the accelerator, “give it some juice”, “flood the carburettor”. Mercutio, of course, was referring to the sounds of sexual propinquity; metaphorically pumping his own gooseneck shaped handle.You are going to have to relax a little bit to lubriciously squelch along with Shakespeare. The choice is to do that or be reduced to looking up the Arden’s “optative” or “ethical dative”.

Bought for daughter as she's doing romeo and juliet in English Lit GCSE.Recommended by teacher.Great thorough book, with full story/acts and room to write notes etc

What innovation for the time. How the poetry echoes in my ear and our language. It is not the first time I have read this play. The critical apparatus was very good. I should have bought it as a book as that form is more useful when researching.

Great for my daughter at high school

Great support book recommended by my daughters school and she got a great grade so very happy with the product!

Excellent for enjoying the text and for study purposes. The Arden Series is one of the best publications in this subject.

As a standard text it was exactly what was needed. Love the book but not the subject lol

Normally Arden editions are extremely well edited, but this one isn’t. The notes at the bottom of the page are interesting, but whereas other Arden editions have a very full glossary, this one is very limited so some passages remain unclear. I’m completing an MA in Shakespeare studies so have read a lot of his plays and this edition is poor compared to many others. I’ve had to get out my RSC complete works to fill in the gaps in the glossary of this Arden edition.