Note XXVIII
IV. 5. 166. Ophelia's speech, or song, is printed as three lines in the Quarto, thus:
And you call him a downe a. O how the wheele becomes it,
It is the false Steward that stole his Maisters daughter.'
It is printed as prose in the Folios; beginning, 'You must sing downe a-downe, &c.' There is no indication that any part was meant to be sung.
Johnson first printed 'You must sing ... call him a-down-a' in italics, as a snatch of song. Steevens (1778) put 'Down a down, as you call him a-down-a' in italics, a reading suggested by Capell's text, where 'Down' begins with a capital letter. The late Mr John Taylor, in a copy of the second Variorum edition (1813) now in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, has made the following note. "Ophelia gives the song without the Burthen first, and then she instructs them 'You must sing a-down a-down, and you (speaking to another) call him a-down-a."
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