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Notes
The problem of emending semi-substantive readings is essentially the same whether in old-spelling or in modernized texts. The means of emendation may differ according to the editorial punctuation system adopted, but the transmission of meaning by emendation of the accidentals will produce the same result. However, the tendency in modernized editions not to record semi-substantive emendations (except as in Foakes's New Arden), despite their importance, stifles the reader's awareness of their presence. And this relaxation in modernized editions of the old-spelling rule that all variants should be recorded sometimes hides from the modernizing editor himself the fact that a very real problem exists, the more especially since most modernizing editors (as of Shakespeare) mark up a copy of some preceding edition for their printer's copy and hence are considerably influenced by traditional editorial accidentals, particularly of punctuation concealing problems in the original.
Sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century dramatic texts are often printed from type-cases that did not contain exclamation marks, or with so few such sorts that they could not be employed with any frequency. Hence it was customary for the obvious emphatic to be accompanied by perfectly ordinary punctuation. (For example, the common exclamation 'Ha' could be followed by a comma, a semicolon, colon, period, or a question mark.) Compositors intent on indicating an exclamation often used a question mark, thus posing a special problem for modernizing (and to a lesser degree old-spelling) editors in cases when the context was about as suitable for a partial query as for an exclamation. For a brief consideration of some of the problems, see Bowers, "Readability and Regularization in Old-
In modernized texts the neglected distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses may usually be worth imposing. The habit of early writers and their printers of forming long speeches by piling up a number of independent clauses, one after another, separated either by semicolons or colons—sometimes confusingly intermixed with stray commas—may often be worth preserving, as exemplified in R. A. Foakes's New Arden edition of Henry VIII. Forming new sentences by capitalization from such a series of clauses can produce a rather choppy effect, even when in the original a colon, say, is followed by a capitol. What is and what is not a run-on line is often in question, given the convention of line-ending commas; not all unpunctuated line-endings need be run-on, but a lack of punctuation in the original may often be given the benefit of the doubt without contrary evidence. For an old-spelling editor the conservative alteration of the dramatic punctuation should be attempted always in terms of the original system of the print with due regard for the compositor setting the lines in question. The urge to insure maximum readability in old-spelling texts by what is actually a form of modernization is one to be resisted: many old-spelling editors tinker too freely with early punctuation that is admittedly irregular but nevertheless characteristic and not necessarily in danger of being misunderstood by a reader accustomed to the system.
All quotations transcribe the Folio except for indented part-lines, the correction of mislining, and the modernization of i-j and v-u as well as of the old long ſ. Emended passages will be found in my edition of the play in vol. 7 (1989) of the Cambridge University Press Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon.
Such a good modernized edition as that of Foakes's New Arden achieves an acceptable compromise between the Folio punctuation and the requirements of a modernized-text reader. In this passage the New Arden alters the colon after 'little' to a semicolon; drops the comma after 'present'; reduces the capital of 'But' to lower case; substitutes a semicolon for a comma after 'flesh'; removes the comma after 'opinions'; and substitutes a comma for the semicolon after 'Heresies'.
A typical example from Henry VIII comes in I.iv.43-45 (722-724), which reads in the Folio:
In their faire cheekes my Lord, then wee shall have 'em,
Talke us to silence.
He stretch'd him, and with one hand on his dagger,
Another spread on's breast, mounting his eyes,
He did discharge a horrible Oath,
Do what ye will my Lords: and pray forgive me;
If I have us'd my selfe unmannerly,
You know I am a Woman, lacking wit
To make a seemely answer to such persons.
To come neere:
With me, a poore weake woman, falne from favour? [1640]
I doe not like their comming; now I thinke on't,
They should be good men, their affaires as righteous:
But all Hoods, make not Monkes.
III.i.18-23 (1638-43)
Whether mistake, rhetorical pause, or convention is doubtful in the caesural comma in III.ii.407-409 (2319-22):
The King ha's gone beyond me: All my Glories
In that one woman, I have lost for ever.
Might corrupt mindes procure, Knaves as corrupt
To sweare against you: . . .
Though in her Cradle; yet now promises
Upon this Land a thousand thousand Blessings, . . .
This information I draw from the notes to the New Arden edition, but curiously this text is unusual in preserving the ambiguous punctuation of the Folio.
One final gnaw at this bone. Although the description of gold heathen gods as clinquant is well enough, the real association of clinquant is with the lace the French wore. Thus the intention of the passage as developed from its imagery is best realized by the emended punctuation 'All Clinquant, all in Gold like Heathen Gods,' which clarifies the parenthesis between subject (the French) and direct object (the English), and thus the French outshone the English.
Another example of a subtle but necessary exchange comes at I.iii.59-62 (647-651) adopted by editors from Theobald. Wolsey's bounty is being praised, to which Lord Sands responds:
Sparing would shew a worse sinne, then ill Doctrine,
Men of his way, should be most liberall,
They are set heere for examples.
Peepe through each part of him: whence ha's he that,
If not from Hell? The Divell is a Niggard, [120]
Or he ha's given all before, and he begins
A new Hell in himselfe.
For example, I.iv.103-108 (812-817) ends with the enamoured King and his party leaving for a private room to continue their revels:
I must not yet forsake you: Let's be merry,
Good my Lord Cardinall: I have a halfe a dozen healths,
To drinke to these faire Ladies, and a measure
To lead 'em once againe, and then let's dreame
Who's best in favour. Let the Musicke knock it.
Semi-substantives are most commonly found among the punctuation, but spelling can be semi-substantive as witness the frequent confusion between travail and travel.
In the broad sense semi-substantives certainly should identify accidentals that alter authorial intention in a meaningful manner comparable to faulty substantives, regardless of any editorial consensus. However, the most interesting editorially are those accidentals which constitute cruxes in meaning in that editors are in general not united either in declaring the original faulty for sense or in the most suitable means for repairing assumed corruption. Editorial disagreement, thus, is not necessary to turn accidentals into semi-substantives; merely, the most eligible accidentals for semi-substantive status are those that constitute cruxes. I argue only on practical grounds and on a case-by-case basis for touchstones, although with certain important considerations. A crux may be incipient in that it is potentially present although not currently admitted, as was true for the King's exit speech at I.iv considered above in footnote 11. Historicity cannot be ignored, however. For many years there appeared to be no question that Hamlet's flesh was solid and not sullied, but the reading is now debated with sullied gaining ground. Of course, not every variant may conceal future dispute, the lunatic fringe aside: it is unlikely that in I.ii.77 (258) Hamlet should address Gertrude as cold mother (Q2) instead of good mother (F1). Moreover, earlier editorial differences about a crucial reading may become so resolved by unanimity that thereafter a crux can scarcely be said to exist—at least at the present time, for the example of the close of I.iv may give us pause. On practical grounds, therefore, I suggest we may identify the most important critical sense of semi-substantives narrowly—and for purposes of discussion here—as differences of current or at least recent editorial opinion about the actual variable sense produced by accidentals, in their significance for variant meaning paralleling substantive cruxes.
If one tests the crux by the commonsense question what the words would signify to an ordinary audience hearing them from the stage, the answer is certainly that 'out' would mean 'without'. The exact circumstances discussed in the New Arden note would not be ascertainable or at all important; that is, whether the council was or was not sitting at the time (Johnson), or whether all mention of the council had been omitted from the letter (Steevens). It is the phrase 'his owne Letter' that shapes the audience's response, it being clear that it was this letter (written without the authority of the council) that brought in the recipient. Holinshed writes that "the peers, receiving letters to prepare themselves to attend the king in their journie . . . seemed to grudge, that such a costlie journie should be
See footnote 10 and the crux at I.i.69-70 (119-120) for Compositor B starting a new sentence in the wrong place. Some transpositions are so lacking in sense as to lead me to speculate that sometimes the transposition resulted from memorial failure by the compositor. That is, as in Moxon's advice, he would have read over several lines and decided on the punctuation, but when he turned to his cases and began setting from memory, he inadvertently transposed the selected punctuation. As a typical though minor example from Henry VIII we find in F
Of this so Noble and so faire assembly,
This night to meet heere they could doe no lesse,
I.iv.66-68 (759-761)
I tender my Commission; by whose vertue,
The Court of Rome commanding. You my Lord
Cardinall of Yorke, are joyn'd with me their Servant,
In the unpartiall judging of this Businesse.
II.ii.103-106 (1150-54)
Prethee returne, with thy approch: I know,
My comfort comes along: . . .
II.iv.236-238 (1609-11)
One may note the ambiguity of the question mark, which poses a problem for modernizing editors more than for old-spelling. Some take the question mark to be the Folio equivalent of an exclamation, as often, and like Alexander, Kittredge, and the New Penguin print 'him!' Others, like the New Arden, follow the Globe in retaining the query. Since in my opinion only in extreme cases of possible confusion of the sense should an old-spelling editor insert uncharacteristic exclamation points in texts normally wanting them, such an editor may well retain the question mark here. Although it is likely that Norfolk's is an exclamation, it is also possible that, with ellipsis, he is inquiring Has this priest no pride in him? which might be supported by Suffolk's response, although not necessarily so. Even if an old-spelling editor chooses to interpret the line as an exclamation, the conventional question mark conveys the sense well enough in an unmodernized text. Of course, a modernizing editor must make a choice.
To venture one may be closely associated but perhaps not idiomatically identical with to make one: see, for example, 'Ile make one in a dance', LLL, V.i.160 (1884) or 'I see a sword out, my finger itches to make one', MWW, II.iii.48 (1108-9), where 'make one' means to join a group.
It is true that the Folio is our sole authority and that its reading of Norfolk's line,
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