Compounded Error
Whereas Table 1 expresses F's success as against its inaction in
correcting Q3, it takes no account of actual failures. On nine occasions F
compounds an error in Q3 which it apparently undertakes to correct. These
are as follows:[17]
|
TLN |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
F1 |
| 1.1.71 |
82 |
spoke, or thou |
spoke, or thou |
spoke, or what |
spoken, or |
|
|
canst worse |
canst |
thou canst |
thou canst |
| 2.1.18 |
659 |
whose taste the |
whose state the |
|
of his state: |
|
|
wise are found |
wise are found |
|
then there are |
|
|
|
|
|
sound |
| 2.2.3 |
955 |
life-harming |
|
half-harming |
selfe-harming |
| 2.2.103 |
1058 |
there no |
there two |
|
there |
| 3.3.17 |
1601 |
our heads |
|
your heads |
your head |
| 3.3.119 |
1706 |
princesse |
|
a Prince |
a Prince, is |
| 3.4.24 |
1834 |
come |
commeth |
|
comes |
| 4.1.41 |
1964 |
to see that |
I to see the |
|
to see the |
| 5.3.63 |
2562 |
held |
|
hald |
had |
This category may contain readings where the promptbook has been
consulted but inadequately represented or even readings where the
promptbook differed from Q1, though one would not expect either of these
to occur regularly. In other respects the group of nine should indicate lines
which escaped collation. If the annotator overlooked a quarto error, which
was then noticed by the compositor setting up the line, the compositor could
either consult the manuscript himself, or correct on his own initiative.
Compound errors could, of course, only occur if the compositor chose the
second of these two options, and the presence of such errors in
Richard
II (and other Folio texts) suggests that re-consultation of the
manuscript
in such circumstances was rare, or non-existent. Indeed it is possible that
the
manuscript could
not be consulted, because it was not in the
printing
house.
The small number of compounded errors is itself significant when
compared with the number of correct restorations of the Q1 reading. But
to
compare figures directly would be misleading, if the hypothesis of relatively
well-corrected areas of text has any validity: one would need to examine in
turn the situation inside and outside those areas.
