University of Virginia Library

Quarto Copy for Folio Henry V
by
Andrew S. Cairncross

I

I propose to argue that the First Folio text of Henry V was set up, so far as that was found feasible, from one or more corrected exemplars of the bad quarto.[1] To my knowledge this has not hitherto been suggested. In spite of the later developed evidence for Richard III and King Lear, Pollard's original belief[2] that no bad quarto served as copy in any sense for the Folio may be largely responsible for the reluctance of modern critics to follow out the consequences of certain QF similarities in Henry V that seemed to point in this direction. Sir Walter Greg, for example, called attention to a "minor problem of interest"—certain "alterations made in the text" of The Contention and The True Tragedy, Q3 (1619), which "anticipate the yet unpublished texts of 2 and 3 Henry VI," and added, "The same phenomenon is found less markedly in the 1608 (1619) edition of Henry V (Q3) . . . the exact origin and significance of the alterations have never . . . been explained."[3] Sir Edmund Chambers[4] noted Greg's point, but made no comment. He noted also (p. 391) that "a few marginal notes for action (II.i.103; IV.viii.9; V.i.30) are common to Q1 and F," and suggested a skeleton "plot" in the hands of the reporters of Q. Greg later[5] doubted the existence of this "plot." As for the "notes for action," or stage-directions, he though that "If anything these may point to some influence of Q upon F, an influence also suggested by the occasional appearance at the same point in both of anomalously divided lines, though there is no question of F having been printed from a copy

(however much corrected) of Q." No reason is given for this opinion, nor any alternative explanation of what this "influence" could have been, or how it worked. Presumably he thought that the certainty of Pollard's conclusions made the supposition incredible.

I propose to argue further that two editions of the quarto, Q2 and Q3, were used as basis for F, and—though this is independent of the use of Q copy in general, and much more tentative—that such use was due to the printers, and not to Heminge and Condell, or the theatre; that the use of Q2 at irregular intervals occurred at those points where correction of Q3—the main copy or basis—proved to be so heavy or complicated that some technique requiring the independent use of both sides of a quarto leaf—one from each quarto—was desirable; and that transcription, while not used for the whole of the "copy," was used, probably in the form of attached slips of paper, to supply the gaps, or "cuts," in the Q text, and perhaps (exceptionally) where a complicated rearrangement of Q material, especially from one Q page to another, made it necessary or convenient; that the whole procedure, in short, was flexible and contingent, and directed to the one aim of providing the compositors with copy, printed as far as possible, in the most convenient way. The practicability of the operation can be demonstrated from sample pages similarly corrected and illustrated below.

II

It is known and acknowledged that Henry V Q is a bad, or reported, text, much abbreviated, often inaccurate and unmetrical, and published, we may be certain, without the authority and consent of the author or his Company. The only passages with any claim to authenticity are those where players' "parts" are conjectured to have been available, such as those of Exeter, Gower, or the Governor of Harfleur (Chambers, op. cit., I, 391-2). F, which includes much material absent from Q and, naturally, corrects its faulty metre and arrangement, necessarily rests (at least in the main and in intention, with the qualifications that will appear presently) on a manuscript supplied by Heminge and Condell. Between Q and F, therefore, except in the "parts," no bibliographical or other textual links ought to exist, except by the merest coincidence, if an independent manuscript served as printer's copy for F.

Still less ought such links to exist between F and Q2 or Q3. For each of these, it is also agreed, was printed direct from Q1.[6] Both diverge, though in different ways, from Q1 in the introduction of a number of variants, especially misprints, and (particularly in Q3) of deliberate attempts, generally

misguided, to improve the sense and the metre, and to modernise. Since, therefore, Q2 and Q3 are (variant) reprints of a bad quarto, any links between F and Q2 or Q3 where these vary from Q1, except in the correction of obvious errors or misprints, furnish double proof of F use of Q copy. In no other way is it possible to account for the close relationship between one text deriving from a theatrical manuscript (F) and another text removed from it, first by the process of reporting, and second by the errors or editing of a reprint (Q2 or Q3).

A few chance coincidences could, of course, have occurred if the same compositors could be shown to have set exactly the same parts of Q2 and Q3 as each of them set in F. This is, on the face of it, highly improbable; and the suggestion is rendered further unlikely or irrelevant by the facts that most of the evidence offered below is beyond the scope of a compositor, and that Q2 was printed some twenty years earlier than F and in a different printinghouse.

III

Now such links between F and Q2 or Q3 do exist in considerable numbers in Henry V. The verbal links are as numerous as those indicated by Dr. Alice Walker in her arguments for the use of Q copy in other plays (Text. Pr., pp. 1-3). And the number can be extended, for Henry V, by the latent errors, some of which can be identified, where F has failed to correct an error common to the quartos. Like the much more numerous QF links of punctuation, spelling, and lineation, these are beyond the range of coincidence, or of transcription, or indeed of any form of transmission except F use of corrected Q copy.

The main verbal links (correct or probably correct readings are italicised) are:-

                               

Q2,F	II.iii.49	world Q2,F; word Q1,3
	IV.i.65	lewer Q1,2; fewer F; lower Q3
	IV.viii.3	toward Q2,F; towards Q1,3
Q3,F	II.i.32	honest Q1,2; omit Q3,F
	ii.177	ye Q1,2; you Q3,F
	iii.22	atQ1,2; on Q3,F
	iii.42	hell fire Q1,2; hell Q3,F
	iv.75	brother Q1,2; brother of Q3,F
	III.vi.106	abraided Q1,2; vpbraided Q3,F
	IV.iii.124	am Q1,2; vm Q3,F (= 'em)
	v.19	inough Q1,2; enow Q3,F
	vii.88	Cryspin, Cryspin Q1,2; Crispin Crispianus Q3,F
	vii.150	off from his Q1,2; from's Q3; from his F
	viii.50	as Q1,2; but as Q3,F
	V.i.14	Here a Q1,2; Heere he Q3,F
	i.31	meane time Q1,2; in the meane time Q3,F

Here the greater number of Q3,F (as compared with Q2, F) agreements is explained by the fact that Q3 was the main "copy," and by the fact that Q3 varies much more widely from Q1 than does Q2. While one or two of the links may be disputed as doubtful (e. g. lewer—lower—fewer), or as due to a common tendency towards modernization, or to a common printer, the general trend is clear enough.

The same impression is conveyed by the stage-directions. These furnish particularly valuable evidence. They differ from the rest of the text in that they are independent of the memorial process of reproduction, and are therefore most unlikely, in the ordinary course, to agree exactly with those of a manuscript such as must have been available for F. Excluding possible "parts," which just might have carried some directions with them, the close agreement of so many stage-directions in Henry V adds further weight to the bibliographical connection between Q and F. It is fairly obvious that many F directions have been copied or edited from those of Q, sometimes abbreviated, and sometimes elaborated or conflated; and where the quartos vary among themselves, F agrees consistently with Q2 or Q3 against Q1. For example:-

                                     

I.ii.7	Q Enter . . . 2. Bishops . . . (Q3 . . . two . . .)
	F Enter two Bishops.
234	Q Enter the Ambassadors from France. (Q1 Thambassadors; Q2 Th'ambassadors)
	F Enter Ambassadors of France.
II.i.79	Q Enter the Boy.
	F Enter the Boy.
	95 Q They draw.
	F Draw.
III.ii.1	Q Enter Nim, Bardolfe, Pistoll, and Boy. (and om. Q1,2)
	F Enter Nim, Bardolph, Pistoll, and Boy.
III.ii.1	Q Enter Gower and Flewellen. (Q3; Enter Gower. Q1,2)
	F Enter Captaines, English and Welch, Gower and Fluellen.
IV.i.85	Q Enter three Souldiers.
	F Enter three Souldiers, Iohn Bates, Alexander Court, and Michael Williams.
IV.iii.16	Q Enter the King. (Q2; the om. Q1,3)
	F Enter the King.
IV.viii.7	Q He strikes him. F Strikes him.
V.i.27	Q He strikes him. F Strikes him.
V.ii.1	Q Enter at one doore, the King of England and his Lords. And at the other doore, the King of France, Queene Katherine, the Duke of Burbon, and others.

 

F Enter at one doore, King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Warwicke, and other Lords. At another, Queene Isabel, the King, the Duke of Bourgongne, and other French.

IV

Two of the most significant links between Q and F would be sufficient of themselves to prove the case for F dependence. The first makes it certain, also, that Q3 was the edition used at this point—II.i.39. According to the usual practice, Nim's interjection "Push." (Q) or "Pish." (F) is here given a line to itself in Q1 and Q2. In Q3 and F, however, it is printed in the same line as the last line of the previous speech—the only example of this in F.

The second link shows F dependence on either Q2 or Q3. The texts compare as follows (IV.viii.104):-

• Q1 . . . but fiue and twentie. O God thy arme was here,
• Q2,3 . . . but fiue and twenty. King. O God, thy Arme was heere,
• F But fiue and twentie. O God, thy Arme was heere:

The F indent in the second line is pointless and exceptional. It is merely a survival of the deletion, in the text of Q2 or Q3, of the erroneous speech-prefix King. This is also true of the retention of the unnecessary division of what are really two parts of the same verse line.

To these links may be added a third, of equal significance, the unique instance, at II.i.98, in which both Q3 and F diverge from their normal practice and from that of Q1 and Q2 to use the speech-prefix form Pi. instead of Pis. or Pist. or (rarely) Pistoll. No doubt the Q3 compositor shortened the prefix in order to justify the line; but Q1 and Q2 had already used a fuller form in the same space, and Q3 has other lines, just as long, with the fuller forms.

Again, the influence of Q, and of Q3 in particular, may be reasonably inferred from the following collation, from the only F passage which departs from the normal speech-prefix King.:-

               

IV.vii.80	Q1	Kin.	Q2	King.	Q3	Kin.	F	Kin.
84		Kin.		King.		Kin.		Kin.
101		Kin.		Kin.		King.		King.
112		K.		Kin.		King.		King.
116		Kin.		Ki.		Kin.		Kin.
127		K.		Ki.		Kin.		Kin.
131		Kin.		Ki.		King.		King.
139		Kin.		Kin.		King.		King.

Here F follows the quite fortuitous variations of Q3, but shows no consistent relation to Q1 or Q2.

Another significant phenomenon among the speech-prefixes is that they often change immediately after, and just as far as, Q copy ceased to be available (since the passages were wanting in Q, or too bad to be used as copy), and F had therefore to be set from the manuscript. This implies that, when the compositor switched over from one type of copy to another—from corrected quarto to manuscript—he was liable to switch, on some occasions, to the (different) speech-prefixes of that copy. This is what must have happened, for example, when the normal F prefix Flu. (Q Flew.) becomes Welch. eight times consecutively at III.ii.64-133, a passage wanting in Q; and when the normal Hostess. becomes Woman. at II.iii.33. The coincidence of the changes with the gaps in Q confirms the use of Q copy on both sides (i. e. before and after) these passages.

Some of the most striking examples of corroborative evidence may now be presented in summary form; the Q text, unless otherwise stated, being taken from Q3, though Q2 may equally well have served, in most cases, as the copy. The strokes indicate the accepted line-division.

Common QF mislineation

II.iv.127-132

• Q3 Dol.
  Say that my father render faire reply,
  It is against my will:
  For I desire nothing so much,
  As oddes with England.
  And for that cause, according to his youth,
  I did present him with those Paris balles.
  
  Exe.
  Hee'l make your Paris Louer shake for it,
  
  
• F Dolph.
  Say: if my Father render faire returne,
  It is against my will: for I desire
  Nothing but Oddes with England.
  To that end,/as matching to his Youth and Vanitie,
  I did present him with the Paris-Balls.
  
  Exe.
  Hee'le make your Paris Louer shake for it,
  
  

The coincidence of Q and F in the erroneous line-ending "England" betrays the F dependence on its copy. Further bibliographical traces or links may appear in the common colon after "will", and the common spelling of Louvre.

IV.i.295-8 (see also Plate VI below)

• Q3 Which euery day their withered hands hold vp To heauen, to pardon blood, And I haue built two Chanceries, more will I do:

---

73




• F Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold vp Toward Heauen, to pardon blood: And I haue built/two Chauntries, Where the sad and solemne Priests/sing still For Richards Soule. More will I doe:

Here F ends two lines wrongly, one (296) directly from Q, the other by beginning a line with the F insertion ("Where . . . Soule."), which is itself misdivided.

IV.viii.38-41

• Q3 King.
  Let me see thy gloue.
  Looke you, this is the fellow of it.
  It was I indeede you promised to strike.
  And thou hast giuen me most bitter words.
  
  
• F King.
  Giue me thy Gloue Souldier;
  Looke, heere is the fellow of it:
  'Twas I indeed thou promised'st to strike,
  And thou hast giuen me most bitter termes.
  
  

Here the QF agreement in dividing the first line into two, at the same point, is suggestive, whether the line is prose (as usually printed), or verse, as Shakespeare probably intended. It is perhaps worth adding that F agrees specifically with Q3, since Q1 and Q2 divide after "Looke you".

Italics

The influence of Q on F may also be illustrated by the occasional departure of F from its normal practice as to the use of roman or italics for proper names, where it is influenced by, and follows, Q. For example, the conservative F compositor A, following his copy—at this point, Q3—diverges into using italics for "Dolphin" in the text, at III.v.64:-

           

	Q1	Q2	Q3	F
II.iv.29	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin
111	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin
115	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin
III.v.64	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin	Dolphin
vii.88	om.	om.	om.	Dolphin

A's more unorthodox colleague, B, also, who was inclined to the opposite extreme of treating the word as a name and italicising it, departs from this practice at I.ii.221 and 235, to follow Q in using roman type, while in the remaining nine instances in the scene, he returns to his normal italics. So, at IV.vi.11, 15, 24, B follows Q3, as against Q1 and Q2, in printing "Suffolke", used alone as a proper name, in roman; and all the quartos in printing "Monmouth", seven times, and "Macedon", five times, in italics (IV.vii.); and "Lucifer" and "Belzebub" in roman.

Spelling

The use of -t and 'd (-ed to indicate unvoiced weak past-participial endings was arbitrary between 1590 and 1623, but the tendency to favour 'd was progressive. One would therefore expect and allow for a certain degree of "modernisation" in F as compared with Q. As Dr. Alice Walker pointed out in the case of quartos that were certainly used as copy for F (op. cit., pp. 154-5), one would expect the pattern of modernisation to be a random one, if the two texts, Q and F, were entirely independent of each other. When one finds, therefore, that the pattern of F follows that of Q in its irregularity, one can only conclude that Q influenced F. In Henry V, there is an almost complete coincidence of such irregularity in these variants where they appear in both texts. The following complete list shows that Q and F agree in 13 -t endings (14 counting Q3 only), 7 -d, -ed, or 'd endings (9 counting Q3 only), while 5 are modernised (Q -t, F '-d, -ed). There are only two exceptions; one of them is Fluellen's (Q digd; F digt), and was presumably intended to emphasize his Welsh pronunciation; the other is fac't out, III.vii.80, and, since the words occur at the end of a prose line in F, the form might be due to an attempt to justify the line.

 

Q,F -t accurst alewasht astonisht establisht matcht Q3 pickt rackt steept toucht vnfurnisht vsurpt vanisht washt worshipt

Q,F -d, 'd, -ed chac'd disgrac'd enforc'd Q3,F finished fixed forc'd Q3,F practis'd stretched wink'd

Q -t F 'd, -ed burnt, burned punisht, punish'd stopt, stop'd steept, (in-)steeped talkt, talk'd

Peculiar, and often unique, spellings are also encountered throughout both texts, e.g. I.ii.164, Owse (all other Shakespearean plays ooze); II.iv.132, Louer (=Louvre); IV.iii.105, crasing (=grazing); V.i.8 sault (all other plays salt).

Punctuation

Here F dependence on Q2 or Q3 may be sufficiently illustrated by the following significant examples:-

• 1. Q How now sir Iohn, quoth I? II.iii.17 F How now Sir Iohn (quoth I?) what man?

The retention of the Q question-mark within the F brackets, if not impossible in Elizabethan punctuation, is at least unusual enough to be taken as a clue.

• 2. Q,F great grandfather I.ii.146 (Camb. great-grandfather)
• 3. Q1,3,F Doll Tear-sheete, she by name, and her espowse II.i.75 (Camb. omits first comma.)
• 4. Q3 Now Lords to France: The enterprise whereof II.ii.182 F Now Lords for France: the enterprise whereof
• 5. Q3 And I: if F and I: If III.ii.13-14 (Camb. And I:/ If)

Compositors' spelling

The F text seems to have been distributed as follows between compositors A and B:-[7]

             

A H1r—h2r col. a	(pp. 69-71a)	I Prol.—I.ii.135
B h2r col. b—h4r col. a	(pp. 71b—75a)	I.ii.136—II.ii.179
A h4r col. b—i4r	(pp. 75b—87)	II.ii.180—IV.iv.43
B i4v—i5r	(pp. 88-89)	IV.iv.44—IV.vii.142
A i5v—i6r	(pp. 90-91)	IV.vii.143—V.i.34
B i6v col. a	(p. 92a)	V.i.34—V.ii.11
A i6v col. b—k2r	(pp. 92b—95)	V.ii.12—end

Both compositors normally alter certain spellings of their copy-text to suit their own preferences. But, especially in the case of a printed text, they occasionally adopt the spelling of that copy. Thus, for example, we find compositor A, in his first stint, departing from his known habits to follow the Q spellings in such words as:-          

Normal A spelling	F Henry V	Q Henry V
I.ii.96 clayme	claim	claim
155 bene, beene	bin	bin Q1,3 (bene Q2)
30 belieue	beleeue	beleeue
177 thieues	theeues	theeues

Even allowing for the occasional use of shorter spellings (e. g. bin) which might have been introduced to "justify" a line, there is a marked series of such variations in the work of both compositors —variations characterized by the consistent adoption of the Q spelling.

The whole point may be neatly illustrated from their use of speech-prefixes, and in particular that for Gower. I have not seen it noticed that A consistently uses a longer form of prefix than B. Thus B can be identified immediately on the evidence of such forms as War., Suf., Mes., Con.; while A prefers Warw., Suff., Mess., Const. For Gower, A uses the full name, while B prefers Gow. Each, however, departs from his normal practice once (apart from an exceptional Gour. at V.i.36). All the quartos are inconsistent, and use several forms of the prefix. But in both the F variants, A and B adopt precisely that form which their quarto copy happened to favour at that point, A taking his Gow. from Q2 at IV.1.81, and B his Gower. from Q3 at IV.vii.19, quite contrary to their habitual forms.

VI

A general illustrative passage may draw these points together, at IV.iii.117-132:

Q3

• They'l be in fresher robes, or they will plucke
• The gay new cloaths ore your French souldiers eares,
• And turne them out of seruice. If they do this,
• As if it please God they shall,
• Then shall our ransome soone be leuied;
• Saue thou thy labour Herauld,
• Come thou no more for ransome, gentle Herauld.
• They shall haue nought I sweare, but these my bones:
• Which if they haue, as I will leaue vm them,
• Will yeeld them little, tell the Constable, . . .
• King. Take it braue Yorke.
• Come souldiers let's away,
• And as thou pleasest God, dispose the day.

F

• They'le be in fresher Robes, or they will pluck
• The gay new Coats o're the French Souldiers heads,
• And turne them out of seruice. If they doe this,
• As if God please, they shall; my Ransome then
• Will soone be leuyed.
• Herauld, saue thou thy labour:
• Come thou no more for Ransome, gentle Herauld,
• They shall haue none, I sweare, but these my ioynts:
• Which if they haue, as I will leaue vm them,
• Shall yeeld them little, tell the Constable. . . .
• King. Take it, braue Yorke.
• Now Souldiers march away,
• And how thou pleasest God, dispose the day.

Here may be noted, in particular:-

• Lineation: the common break at "leuyed" in the middle of the verse line: the printing of "Take it . . . away" as two lines, common to Q3 (but not Q1 or Q2) and F.
• Punctuation: the colon after "bones/ioynts".
• Errors: "or", in line 117, was amended by Hanmer, justifiably, to "for"; "or" has been defended, but is not really satisfactory."vm" (Q1,2 "am"); Camb. "'em".
• Spelling: "Herauld" is unusual in F.

VII

Since the evidence, then, points clearly to the use of Q as copy or basis for F, is there anything to determine what procedure was followed? Was the copy simply consulted, or was it physically amended, or was it transcribed, or was there a blend of more than one of these methods?

The use of two quartos seems to indicate amendment or correction, and the facility of using both recto and verso of a quarto leaf when difficulty was encountered. Marginal (including possibly interlinear) correction there certainly seems to have been. This was on the whole feasible. Many quarto pages could have been collated with an authoritative manuscript and corrected without much trouble, and would provide copy no worse than an ordinary corrected proof; for example, of the first two quarto signatures—14 pages of text—only two, B1v and B4v, would be rather crowded after correction. The main difficulty would arise from Q omissions, passages to be inserted in the Q copy. Here it is worth noting that, in general, there was more blank space on the Q page than is usually realized. As the photographs reproduced below will confirm, there was often room for ten or a dozen lines to be inserted, not to mention minor corrections. No doubt some of the smaller insertions would be made on the Q page; the longer or more involved could be written on slips of paper and attached to the page, or included as separate leaves; or they might even be set from the manuscript itself—though this might raise other difficulties. The top half of E1r (of Q2), given below (plate VI), is an example of the lighter type of correction; the lower half illustrates some of the relatively few more difficult stretches.

It is by such a process of correction that many F errors, the existence of which has already been recognized on literary grounds (in, e. g. H. T. Price, The Text of Henry V, 1920), may, and, in some cases, must, have originated. The test is to edit the quarto as the F printers may be presumed to have done, and watch the errors arising in the process. Sample pages are given below. As far as possible, illustrations are drawn from the Q2 copy, since its use, and the evidence for its use, are scarcer (because of its greater conformity with Q1) than for Q3, and Q3 has been amply illustrated above.

(a) Excessive deletion:

II.i.26-27

• Q3 Bar.
  Good morrow ancient Pistoll. heere comes ancient Pistoll, I prethee Nim be quiet.
  
  Nim.
  How do you my host?
  
  
• F Bar.
  Heere comes Ancient Pistoll and his wife: good Corporall be patient heere. How now mine Hoaste Pistoll?
  
  

Price (op. cit., pp. 52-3) points out the dramatic necessity of giving the last sentence to Nim, as in Q, in view of Pistol's reply, "Base Tyke, cal'st thou mee Hoste. . . ." The F omission of the prefix "Nim." is explicable on the assumption that the corrector of the Q copy wrote his corrections, as he might well do here, for want of space, in such a way as to obscure it.

That the corrector sometimes drew an arrow or equivalent pointer from a marginal addition to its position in the text of Q, and seemed (to the compositor) to delete in the process the words printed in its path, is suggested by the proximity of some F omissions to passages where an insertion was necessary. For example:-

V.i.75-76

• Q3 Well France farewell, newes haue I certainly
  That Doll is sicke. One malady of France
  
  
• F Newes haue I that my Doll is dead i'th Spittle of a malady of France
  
  

Here the corrector, besides deleting "certainly" and inserting "my" before "Doll", would require to delete "sicke" and substitute for it "dead i'th Spittle". If this were done in the left-hand margin, a pointer drawn to indicate an insertion after "sicke" might well run through, or seem to run through, the phrase "Well France farewell," and account for its omission in F, where it is just what is wanted to fill the gap in the verse. The passage and its correction are illustrated below in Plate II.

(b) Inadequate deletion:

On a theory of marginal correction, it seems clear that the last two words in the F passage given below are to be explained as superfluous, and their presence due to an oversight after the insertion made at the correct point earlier in the line.

II.i.39-40

• Q Pist.
  What, dost thou push, thou prickeard cur of Iseland
  
  
• F Pist.
  Pish for thee, Island dogge: thou prickeard cur of Island.
  
  

Another probable example of the same kind, where the Q "and" is superfluous in F, and should have been deleted, is II.ii.13-14:

• Q My Lord of Cambridge, and my Lord-of Massham,
  And you my gentle Knight, giue me your thoughts,
  
  
• F My Lord of Cambridge, and my kinde Lord of Masham,
  And you my gentle Knight, giue me your thoughts:
  
  

Similarly, deletion applied to the wrong one of two identical phrases in two successive lines, and applied, or interpreted, inadequately, seems to be what is needed to explain and smooth out the F tangle:-

I.ii.207-8

• As many Arrowes loosed seuerall wayes
  
  
• Come to one marke: as many wayes meet in one towne,
  
  

The trouble seems to have originated with Q:-

• As many arrowes losed seuerall wayes, fly to one marke:
  
  
• As many seuerall wayes meete in one Towne:
  
  

The corrector, we may suppose, intended to delete "seuerall wayes" from the first Q line, but instead deleted the same phrase from the second, and in such a manner as to leave "wayes" undeleted, or at least legible, so that it was later recovered for the sense. Allowing for the other minor corrections, the F version should therefore read, more smoothly, and perhaps more sensibly:-

• As many arrows, loosed, come to one mark;
  
  
• As many several ways meet in one town;
  
  

(c) Errors arising out of transposition:

The corrector seems also to have used single or double arrows or a similar device to indicate transfer or transposition, and sometimes in such a way as to leave the process incomplete or liable to be misinterpreted. At two important points, for example, where editors adopt the Q arrangement, or Q lines omitted by F, a method of inadequate transfer seems to furnish the probable explanation of the F error.

IV.iii.11-16

• Q2 Cla.
  Farewell kind Lord, fight valiantly to day,
  And yet in truth I do thee wrong,
  For thou art made on the true sparkes of honour.
  
  
• F Bedf.
  Farwell good Salisbury, & good luck go with thee:
  And yet I doe thee wrong, to mind thee of it,
  For thou art fram'd of the firme truth of valour.
  
  Exe.
  Farwell kind Lord: fight valiantly to day.
  
  Bedf.
  He is as full of Valour as of Kindnesse,
  Princely in both.
  
  

It is agreed that the second and third lines in F ought to follow the fourth as part of Exeter's speech. The error is usually attributed to a marginal insertion of these two lines, and a mistake as to the correct point of insertion. The theory of corrected Q copy for F provides a somewhat similar explanation, and at the same time supplies a reason why the two lines should have been inserted at all. If the missing speeches of Bedford were added to Q where the immediately following stage-direction provides some space, or at the foot of the page, where there is plenty of room, the first of these speeches could then be transposed with that of Cla. (corrected to Exe.) by pointers connecting the two speech-prefixes. The printer might then erroneously transpose the two lines thus connected, leaving the intervening lines (12-13) as they stood. The process is conjecturally illustrated on Plate VI below.

IV.iii.48: The F omission of the Q line

• And say, these wounds I had on Crispins day.
  
  

also occurs at a point where a transposition sign might be attached to the line above it, and is thus very similar to the preceding example. Q3 reads:-

• F line
• And say, to morrow is S. Crispins day:
  
  46
• [12 lines] 51-63
• Then shal he strip his sleeues, & shew his scars,
  
  47
• And say, these wounds I had on Crispins day.
  
  48
• And Gentlemen in England now a bed,
  
  64

(d) Erroneous incorporation from marginal corrections:

There are two outstanding examples of this:-

The resulting F version of this passage reads:-

The intrusion of "will" into the third last F line is curious. Editors have managed to incorporate it, and possibly to make sense of it, but have fought shy of explanations. Yet, on the basis of corrected Q2 as copy for F, the reason for its presence, and its lack of authenticity, may be demonstrated. It will be observed that, owing to a number of natural associations, here and in the immediate context, Q has mistaken the position of the two lines "And your maiestie . . . the gloue." The corrector, to restore the true order, would transfer either the two lines to their proper position below, or the succeeding eight lines (duly corrected) to theirs above. He would also correct the prefix "Soul." and write in the margin, or above the prefix, the F form "Will." In either case, it could easily be read as for insertion between "And" and "auouchment" in the line above. And, one passage or the other to which it belonged being due for transfer, what more natural than that it should go with it, besides being inserted, correctly, as the speechprefix for "Soul."? Since the lineation of the first four Q lines is different in Q3, so as to make this error impossible, it seems certain that here Q2 was used. This is confirmed by the detailed collation of this page (sig. F2r) given below. In Q3 the critical passage is arranged, differently:- (2) The other outstanding example of erroneous incorporation in F of marginal correction from Q copy occurs in an extremely corrupt Q passage, V.i.75-83, part of which has already been dealt with, and which exhibits in F all the symptoms of corrected copy—common errors, punctuation, and spelling; and F omissions due to the heavy correction and the difficulty of the copy. Here the word "cudgeld" (line 82) spoils the metre, and is obviously in some way connected with the same word three lines earlier. Editors, with the exception of Pope, have apparently been tied to the authority of F, and allowed the word to stand. A comparison of the Q version, however, and a consideration of the marginal corrections necessary to transform it into the F version, suggest a simple explanation—the word has been duly inserted in its proper place, but also caught up again from the end of the insertion, which would stretch down the right-hand margin so as to place the word opposite or above the end of line 82, thus:- It is to be remarked, further, that:-

VIII

Passages not represented in Q must of course have been either printed direct from manuscript, or from a transcript, probably on a slip or sheet of paper that could be inserted or pasted into the copy. That some transcription was done is rendered likely by the evidence of mislineation in such passages; though of course mislineation, of itself, proves little, and could arise from many other causes. In particular, IV.i.226-245, a piece of blank verse throughout, is mislined by F in one way, and by editors in another.

The corrector seems also to have used transcription, on at least one occasion, to resolve confusion in the corrected copy. He ran into trouble for the first time at the foot of B1r, where, as on the verso, heavy correction was necessary, as well as the transposition of various lines from verso to

recto. Transcription is suggested by the manuscript-type error "name" (II.i.23) for the correct Q reading "mare".

However that may be, the evidence points to this limitation on transcription, namely, that F peculiarities previously detailed cannot be so explained where the text is common to F and Q, nor would transcription seem to require the use of two quartos.

IX

The most intriguing question is the reason for the use of two quartos as copy. Once again, the way to the probable solution is to follow the procedure that the corrector may be assumed to have adopted, and at the same time to identify, as near as can be done in the circumstances, the particular quarto used at each point. From a treatment of the text in this way, it emerges that Q3 was the main copy, and in particular for gatherings A and B, where, with the exceptions noted above, it presents no difficulty. Elsewhere, beginning from signature C, the use of Q2 occurs at intervals. Its use seems to coincide with difficulty of corrections, i.e. heavy correction on at least one side of the Q leaf, where both sides are usable. This means that, in such cases, Q3 was used, as corrected, for e.g. the recto, while Q2 was similarly used for the verso. The obvious advantage of this procedure was, of course, that it dispensed with the need for transcription of a passage as a whole, while allowing either side to be cut up, re-arranged, and supplemented by the necessary material and corrections from the manuscript. And, as we should expect on such a hypothesis, the use of the Q copy was determined in general by the Q page. This is confirmed by the fact that it has no consistent relation to the F page or column, or to the stints undertaken by the F compositors, or to act and scene divisions. The Q page is normally that of Q3, though occasionally that of Q2 is allowed to determine the limit of use.

All this is well illustrated by the first appearance of Q2 as copy—on C1r. The division is sharply marked, with two clear variants—Q3,F "hell" (Q1,2 "hell fire") in the last line, II.iii.42, of B4v; and Q2,F "world" instead of the correct Q1,3 "word" in "The word is pitch and pay:" in the seventh line of C1r. Actual correction of Q to bring it into conformity with F shows that the corrector here found himself in difficulty owing to the combined need for transposition, correction, and addition. The initial result would be so complicated as to give a compositor some trouble, thus—and this is the result of various trials:-

The corrector seems to have decided, of necessity, to make a better copy. Rather than rewrite the passage, he sought another exemplar, which happened

to be one of Q2. Here he discovered—if he was not already aware— that this passage occupied the lower half of B4v, which he was naturally free to cut up and re-arrange so as at the same time to allow for the insertion of any omitted matter. The process turned out to be extremely simple and economical, and provided much better copy, something like this:-

Continuing with the correction of C1, the corrector immediately came to a corrupt passage of five lines, for which he had to substitute twenty, II.iv.1-20. This was followed by six gaps, in rapid succession, including one of 13 and one of 15 lines. He therefore continued with the scissors-and-paste method, using the still intact recto of C1 in Q2, and thus preserving for further use the verso, C1v, of Q3, thus:-

The collation suggests that he continued the use of Q2 until he came to the stage-direction at the foot, and for that, and the one line of text after it, II.iv.75, returned to Q3, where only a part of the verso was now required. The collation is:-                

Q1	Q2	Q3	F
Q2 II.iv.21 foorth	forth	foorth	forth
22 France:	France:	France	France:
25 busied	busied	troubled	busied
26 kingd	Kingd	kingd	King'd
27 fantastically	phantastically	fantastically	phantastically
65 Embassador	Embassador	Ambassador	Embassador
Q3 75 brother	brother	brother of	brother of

One must, of course, make allowances for accidentals, compositors' habits, etc.; but the trend in favour of Q2, and the absence of any clear case of dependence on Q3, are evident enough.

Q3 proved adequate for the next two pages. The Chorus of Act III intervened approximately between the recto and verso of C2, which would

allow, possibly, of the verso being cut up for the interposition of several long omissions; though separate slips could also have been used. In the case of C3, the verso, containing the French of III.iv., was almost certainly unusable, and the corrector was thus free to do as he wished with the recto. On similar lines, Q3 seems to have sufficed for D1 to D3 inclusive, though D3r may either not have been used at all, or may have been cut up on account of heavy transposition, and Q2 used for the lightly corrected verso. The evidence is too slight for a firm decision.

The next instance where Q was difficult on both sides but not unusable on either, is D4. At this point, the Q2 page begins and ends the previous signature one line earlier than Q3, i. e. D4r of Q3 begins at IV.i.62, while D3v of Q2 begins at IV.i.61. This correspondence must have favoured alternate use of the quartos. Collation suggests that the recto was set up from Q2, i. e. D3v: IV.i.61-103:-

         

Q1	Q2	Q3	F
IV.i.65 lewer	lewer	lower	fewer
67 ancient	auncient	ancient	aunchient
71 bable	bable	babble	bable
81 Gour.	Gow.	Gower.	Gow.

Although a case can be made out on general grounds for "fewer", as by Greg (Pr. Em., pp. 18-19), the Q3 "lower", which is supported by "I will speak lower" at line 81, is almost certainly correct, and, on a theory of Q copy for F, it is clear that "fewer" has not the independent authority it was supposed to have, and is, in fact, nothing but a conjectural emendation, by the F corrector or compositor, of the Q2 "lewer".

Besides heavy correction, both sides of the leaf (as in Q3) have substantial gaps, amounting to some 65 lines, the recto some transposition, e. g. lines 113-114 with 101-103, and five lines that are, rightly or wrongly, omitted altogether in F. Here again, use of one quarto for each side of the leaf would give the advantage of the scissors-and-paste method.

On the next page, E1r, the corrector continued with Q3 (IV.i.186-289). He encountered heavy correction, five small gaps, and a little transposition. Near the end, 60 lines had to be inserted, and 20 of these appear in F mislined (226-245), suggesting that they were copied on to a slip, not too intelligently. On the verso, correction is particularly heavy on the second half of the page, and a whole scene of 64 lines, IV.ii., had to be restored in the middle. Again, recourse seems to have been had to Q2 (E1r; E1v in Q3). Such variants as do occur point to Q2 here:-

       

IV.iii.4	Exe. Q1,2,F	Ex. Q3
4	all are Q1,2,F	are all Q3
12	Lord Q1,2,F	Lords Q3
16SD.	the King Q2,F	King Q1,3

Exactly the same procedure was applied to the next signature, E2—Q3 being used for the recto and Q2 for the verso. The use of Q2 was here due, not so much to the state of the verso, which is good, as to the very heavy correction and transposition necessary on the recto (IV.iii.33-72). The verso (IV.iii.73-116) shows the following indications of Q2 copy:-

     

IV.iii.90 backe Q1,3	back: Q2,F
100 famed, Q1,3	famed: Q2,F
113 flye:Q1 flye, Q3	flie: Q2,F

The only significant Q2 exception "within are trim" at line 115, for "are in the trim" (Q1,3,F), must have been restored by the corrector.

The remainder of E presented no difficulty; E3v, another French scene, was probably useless; and the other pages could be corrected easily from Q3.

Both sides of F1 are fairly heavily corrected, and Q2 may have been used for the recto, though it is hard to be quite certain. Q2 next appears on signature F2 (IV.vii.114-161; IV.vii.161—IV.viii.35). Q3 was used for the recto, which still coincides, to within a line, with the previous Q2 verso. The evidence of the speech-prefixes (section IV above), and readings like "from's" Q3; "from his" F ("off from his" Q1,2) confirm. The recto has all the familiar features—heavy correction, gaps, and transposition—that accompany the introduction of Q2. It is not surprising, therefore, that the collation of the verso, itself containing a number of gaps, and requiring (in Q2, where the corresponding side, the recto, takes in 12 more lines) some transposition, shows evidence of the use of Q2, as follows:-

         

IV.viii.1 SD.	Captaine Gower Q3	Gower Q1,2,F
3	towards Q1,3	toward Q2,F
18/23	now? Whats Q1,3	now whats Q2,F
26	in person Q3	om. Q1,2,F
30	in's Q3	in his Q1,2,F

The incorporation of the speech-prefix "Will." from the margin into the text, from Q2, has already been mentioned and illustrated (Plate I).

Here we have again the tendency to complete the page of whichever quarto was in use. The corrector continued to the end of the Q2 recto, which carried him well over into the Q3 recto of F3. The resumption of Q3 at that point is clear from e. g. the reading "but" (om. Q1,2) at IV.viii.50.

The last evidence of Q2 copy occurs on the second half of F4r, and may be confined to that half. The top half of both recto and verso needs only light amendment, the lower half of both a great deal. The Q3 page may therefore have been cut across, so that the verso could be cut-and-pasted

(from Q3; "in the meane time" Q3,F;"meane time"Q1,2, at V.i.31); the lower half of the recto being done on Q2, where it formed the top of F3v; or the whole of the recto could have been corrected on the Q2 copy (IV.viii.106—V.i.13) so that the Chorus to Act V could be inserted between the end of F3r and the beginning of F3v. The return to Q3 was made, as we have seen happen before (sig. C1), on the stage-direction "Enter Pistol." required before the last line of the page (F4r) of Q3.

The outstanding evidence here of Q2 is the spelling "sault" at V.i.8 in Q2 and F, a spelling not found elsewhere in F or the quartos; and this is corroborated by:-

     

IV.viii.109 other. Q1,2 other, F	(an other ? Q3
109 God Q1,2,F	O God Q3
112 proclaimed Q1,2,F	proclaim'd Q3

The resumption of Q3 at line 14 is suggested by the variant:  

Here a Q1,2

Heere he Q3,F

G1r bears the last obvious traces of F use of Q copy, but, as a single side or page, presents no problem. The discontinuance of Q copy must have been due to the difficulty it presented from this point to the end of the play; it would not have proved worth while to try to use it.

To sum up: A system such as that outlined above may, in the description, seem rather complicated, and more trouble than it could have been worth. But, with the two quartos in hand, it works out in fact very easily, and is eminently feasible. Enough Q pages could be corrected with a minimum of labour to make the process economical. Enough leaves could be used on both sides, or proved to be usable on one side, to permit one corrected quarto (Q3) to serve as the main copy. Leaves of which both sides were subject to heavy correction, but still usable either as they stood or after scissors-and-paste treatment, called into play the supplementary Q2, one side of the leaf being used from each of the quartos. This probably happened with the following Q3 pages, where the coincidence of heavy two-side correction with the introduction of Q2 suggests a causal connection:-C1r, D3v (?), D4r, E1v, E2v, F1r (?), F2v, F4r (pages as in Q3). Occasionally, for a short passage, where correction created confusion, a transcript may have been made, as in B1r. The main gaps in Q were probably sometimes supplied by transcription, as is suggested by verse mislineation; elsewhere, of course, they could have been set up direct from the manuscript. As a means of providing copy for two compositors with a known preference for printed copy, this method has its obvious advantages. We do not know exactly how Jaggard's compositors worked on the copy; but in Henry V it is possible to see how both could have been provided, on this

loose-leaf system, with copy so that neither need have interfered with the progress of the other. And it may have been a further incentive, though again we can only conjecture, that by this method the manuscript could have been preserved and returned to the Company intact.

X

The general conclusion seems justified that F was set up from corrected Q copy within certain limits. Further, both Q2 and Q3 were used—there is no sign of exclusive dependence on Q1—Q3 serving as the main copy, and Q2 being drawn on wherever that gave the advantage of using independently a separate side of a Q leaf. Since the use of the quartos as copy coincides with the Q pages, but with no other known factor in relation to the copy, this may be taken as a printing-house device to ease the task of correction and speed the delivery of the copy, if necessary, to the compositors. It would also serve, alternatively, for speed in making a complete duplicate of the play for later use, if the manuscript were urgently required or demanded by the players, or if there was likely to be a long delay in setting up.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine any other explanation of the facts here presented. One cannot imagine such a copy originating, for example, in the theatre. It certainly would have been impossible as promptcopy; nor is it likely that, even if Heminge and Condell set themselves, or their scribe, to make a transcript, it would have been done in this way, or on two exemplars. The use of Q is much too widespread to admit of a "patching" theory, such as has been offered for Richard III; a manuscript that required patching to that extent would obviously have been so dealt with long before, and one hesitates to think what it would look like after the "patching." Again, if there was to be transcription, it is difficult to see the point of the intermediate use of the quartos; it would have been better to do the transcript direct from the manuscript. In short, except as a printer's device, there seems to be no accounting for all the phenomena of the F text.

XI

Apart from possible repercussions on the general theory of Shakespearean texts, which are beyond the scope of this article, it is clear that the approach to the text of Henry V will have to be revolutionized. All existing texts, to my knowledge, are based on the assumption that F is independent of Q, and that therefore, as Greg puts it (Pr. Em., p. 16), "Where the texts differ, one possesses vastly greater authority than the other: where they agree, we not only have direct transcriptional witness to what the author wrote, but we know . . . that this was actually spoken on the stage."

If the theory of Q copy, however, is correct, the opposite will in fact be largely true: where the texts differ, we may infer that, apart from F compositorial intervention, the corrector has been at work, and that F is likely to be correct; where they agree, it may well be an agreement in error owing to the failure of the corrector to correct. This means that an editor's task will include the detection of latent errors, the still more difficult task of deciding between a F correction and a F error, and in general, the reconstruction of the process of correction for the light it can throw on the text of F. He will have the certainty that in many cases the authentic text is lost beyond recovery; but at least he will be able to remove a great many blemishes that have been obvious enough, but remain secure on the supposed independent authority of the Folio. The task, however, has yet to begin.

Notes