[1] Its title runs, "The Tragedie of King Richard the Second: with new additions of the Parliament Sceane, and the deposing of King Richard, As it hath been lately acted by the Kinges Maiesties Seruantes, at the Globe. By William Shake-speare. At London. Printed by W. W. For Mathew Law, and are to be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard, at the Signe of the Foxe. 1608." XVIII _RICHARD III. PSYCHOLOGY AND MONOLOGUES--SHAKESPEARE'S POWER OF SELF-TRANSFORMATION--CONTEMPT FOR WOMEN--THE PRINCIPAL SCENES--THE CLASSIC TENDENCY OF THE TRAGEDY_ In the year 1594-95 Shakespeare returns to the material which passed through his hands during his revision of the Second and Third Parts of _Henry VI_. He once more takes up the character of Richard of York, there so firmly outlined; and, as in _Richard II._ he had followed in Marlowe's footsteps, so he now sets to work with all his might upon a Marlowesque figure, but only to execute it with his own vigour, and around it to construct his first historic tragedy with well-knit dramatic action. The earlier "histories" were still half epical; this is a true drama. It quickly became one of the most effective and popular pieces on the stage, and has imprinted itself on the memory of all the world in virtue of the monumental character of its protagonist. The immediate occasion of Shakespeare's taking up this theme was probably the fact that in the year 1594 an old and worthless play on the subject was published under the title of _The True Tragedy of Richard III_. The publication of this play may have been clue to the renewed interest in its hero awakened by the performances of _Henry VI._ It is impossible to assign a precise date to Shakespeare's play. The first Quarto of _Richard II._ was entered in the Stationers' Register oh the 29th August 1597, and the first edition of _Richard III_. was entered on the 20th October of the same year. But there is no doubt that its earliest form is of much older date. The diversities in its style indicate that Shakespeare worked over the text even before it was first printed; and the difference between the text of the first Quarto and that of the first Folio bears witness to a radical revision having taken place in the interval between the two editions. It is certainly to this play that John Weever alludes when, in his poem, _Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare,_ written as early as 1595, he mentions Richard among the poet's creations. From the old play of _Richard III_. Shakespeare took nothing at all, or, to be precise, possibly one or two lines in the first scene of the second act. He throughout followed Holinshed, whose Chronicle is here copied word for word from Hall, who, in his turn, merely translated Sir Thomas More's history of Richard III. We can even tell what edition of Holinshed Shakespeare used, for he has copied a slip of the pen or error of the press which appears in that edition alone. In Act v. scene 3, line 324, he writes:--