Note 122 — Chapter III · ANCESTRY OF SHAKESPEARE’S ROMAN PLAYS (continued 2)

The whole question about the editions which Shakespeare read is a complicated one. Two things are pretty certain: (1) He must have used the first edition for Midsummer-Night’s Dream, which was in all likelihood composed before 1595, when the second appeared. (2) He must have used the first or second for Julius Caesar, which was composed before 1603, when the third appeared. It is more difficult to speak positively in regard to Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. It has been argued that the former cannot have been derived from the first two editions, because in them Menas’ remark to Sextus Pompeius runs: