Lord Capulet’s Lost Compromise: A Tragic Emendation and the Binary Dynamics of Romeo and Juliet

after hearing conflicting testimony from the Montague and Capulet camps about the slaying of Tybalt, the Prince of Verona asks, “Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio; / Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?” The answer comes from Romeo’s father: “Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend. / His fault concludes but what the law should end, / The life of Tybalt” (3.1.184–88). Or at least it does unless you happen to own a copy of the 1963 Signet edition, which—unlike every other modern edition of the play I can find—gives that answer to Juliet’s father instead. Otherwise a reader can traipse back through the hall of fame of Shakespeare editors without finding that little speech attributed to Lord Capulet. Try the great Dr. Johnson (1765), Capell’s carefully researched collection (1768), the scrupulous improvements of Malone (1790), the lavish Steevens/Boydell editions (1802), the notorious Bowdler’s Family Shakespeare (1820), Collier (1842), Furness’s Variorum (1871), Dowden (1900), Sisson (1953), Dover Wilson (1955), George Walton Williams (1964), the controversial Rowse (1968), Craig (1931), Kittredge (1936) and Ribner’s update (1978), Harbage’s Pelican collection of the works and the new version by Orgel and Braunmuller (2002), Raffel for Harold Bloom’s series (2004), the old and new Folger editions (1959, 2004), or Bate and Rasmussen’s RSC Complete Works (2007). Dig through all three Arden editions, both the traditionalist old Oxford version and Wells and Tay-