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Notes
Through line numbers refer to The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare, ed. Charlton Hinman, 1968. Globe act, scene, and line numbers are also given.
John Dover Wilson noted a number of "traces of rhymed couplets" in The Tempest, which he took as signs that Shakespeare was adapting an old play. In the lines he points out, however, (e.g. 1282-3, 1269-70) the rhymes are either both internal or both at the ends of lines.
Interestingly F. J. Furnivall reprinted in his reduced facsimile of 1895 a copy of the Folio with a damaged but recognizable "f," and his parallel text read "wife." However, no one seems to have pursued the implications. He himself printed "wise" in his 1909 Old Spelling edition, with the siglum "F. Some copies wife. Rowe, Cam. A ryme [sic] is evidently meant."
Folger copies # 9, 14, and 15 were not checked since they are part of traveling exhibitions and not available in the library. Mr. Carey S. Bliss, Curator of Rare Books at The Huntington Library, reports that all four Folios in that library read "wise."
The possibility that Rowe saw "wife" in a copy of the First Folio, though remote, cannot be absolutely ruled out. (Folger Folio #73 is thought to have belonged to Thomas Killigrew, father and son.) There is no evidence that Rowe ever saw the First Folio in any copy. He did restore a number of readings which occurred only in that edition, but this can be attributed to chance or good editorial judgment. In his dedication to the Duke of Somerset he says he compared "the several editions" without specifying which ones.
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