II
Since indefinite SHs or variable SHs for the same character, combined with the
misassignment or misplacement of other SHs, have been taken as one sign that a play text has not yet
been made fully ready for performance, we should examine Coriolanus to see
how many difficulties they would actually have presented and at what point in the transmission these
irregularities are likely to have entered the F text. Although SHs vary, they would not in general have
baffled the book-keeper. Those that reflect one or the other of Titus Lartius' names, or variant
abbreviations for Coriolanus, Menenius, and Aufidius, present no problem. Most indefinite SHs, such
as Both (four in 2.1; one in 2.3; two in 4.5), are clear from context (the two
tribunes in 2.1; the two citizens on stage at 2.3.111/1502; First and Second Servingman in 4.5); the
Exeunt both at 4.6.148/3076 obviously refers to Menenius and Cominius and may
have even specified them in the manuscript, since Compositor B was clearly pressed for space here and
could not afford a two-line SD. A couple would need to be decided in rehearsal or, more probably, in
making up the `plot' and the individual actor's parts: which two of the three women on stage should
speak the words assigned to `2 Ladies', at 2.1.107/1004, and does
Tri. at 4.6.120/3042 mean Both Tri. (which appears at
4.6.26/2924) or just one, where either one will do? A both that has proved
troublesome to some editors appears in the SD Draw both the Conspirators, and kils
Martius, who | falles, Auffidius stands on him (5.6.130/3804), since the
entry direction had been for 3 or 4 Conspirators of Auffidius Faction.
Brockbank suggests two
possibilities: that the two SDs were in different hands, the entry direction by
Shakespeare and the other by the book-keeper `witnessing to a performance that made do with two
conspirators', or that a book-keeper annotated an authorial original with
both;
but he concludes a book-keeper's responsibility for
both is unlikely.
[61] I agree that both SDs appear authorial but do
not think the latter would have presented any production problem, since
both
could at this time also refer to more than two.
[62]
Such vagueness about minor characters seems characteristic of Shakespeare's habits
during composition. In Hand D's three pages of Sir Thomas
More, four speeches are assigned to other (which shrinks to
oth and o); the revising playhouse scribe known as Hand C
deleted all four instances and substituted characters' names. In Coriolanus such
authorial indifference may lie behind the mixture of numbered and unnumbered senatorial speakers in
1.1 (where the first two are `I. Sen.' but two more are unnumbered), 2.2 (the first
is `I. Sen.', the other four unspecified), and the jumbling of numbered and
unnumbered senators in 3.1, or the wholly unnumbered soldiers in 1.10. Some of the undesignated
senators might be the result of scribal or compositorial oversight, but they span both compositors' stints
and most probably reflect Shakespeare's thinking in terms of effective crowd scenes (like
other in More), where anonymous voices issue from
different parts of the group.[63] The four undesignated soldier-speakers
in 1.10 may have been intended for a similar
effect, although in this case Shakespeare might have left
them to be dealt with when the play was cast and the number of available soldiers known, since the SD
has Aufidius entering with two or three Souldiors.[64] There are F plays whose underlying copy is thought to have been
annotated in consultation with a promptbook that contain speeches for unspecified (except by function)
minor characters, like the gardener's two servants and Queen's two ladies in Richard
II.[65] Paul Werstine has noted similar
ambiguities and even a
mixture of both specified and unnumbered SHs in the surviving manuscript playbooks.
[66]
No one has deemed it necessary to normalise the various designations for the opposed
classes in different scenes. Classical Rome and seventeenth-century England co-exist comfortably in
SDs where the entering Citizens of 1.1 are both
Citizens and Plebeians in 2.3, a rabble
of Plebeians as well as the People in 3.1, and back to
Citizens in 4.6, while their Volscian counterparts in 5.6 are the
Commoners. The Patricians are also all the
Gentry in 3.1, Nobles in 3.2, and some of them the
yong Nobility of Rome in 4.1. The terms may slide between civilizations, but the class status and
relationship remain the same and clear, hence there was no need to tamper with them. Immediate
function within the scene being composed seems to have governed the terms that came to mind. So in
4.3 the entry direction and SHs are for a Roman and a Volce, despite the fact
that each soldier is named in the dialogue. The important point is that one is a traitor to Rome, reporting
Rome's troubles to the enemy he now joins, in a scene immediately preceding Coriolanus' arrival in
Antium seeking Aufidius.
The frequent SH All, too, has been left largely untouched,
although in only a few cases can it be taken literally as requiring everyone on stage to speak at once.
Some disambiguation has been (rather intermittently) undertaken, by author or theatrical annotator, for
we do find one All Ple. in 3.1 (where on this principle many more differentiated
Alls are needed), and All Lords, All
People, and All Consp. in 5.6. All is a common
SH in promptbook texts, and it seems to have been conventional to leave what it might mean in
individual cases to be worked out in the playhouse.[67]
All might signify nearly everyone on stage speaking in unison, as when Coriolanus
is celebrated by Omnes shouting his new full name in 2.1, or more restrictively,
when only the plebeians chant `It shall be so' when the tribunes declare Coriolanus' banishment at
3.3.106/2407. At times the words it labels should be distributed as widely a possible, as in the
breakdown of order in Corioles
when
All People turn against Coriolanus and
should individually cry out what is run together in the text: `Teare him to peeces, do it presently: | He
kill'd my Sonne, my daughter, he kill'd my Cosine | Marcus, he kill'd my Father.' (5.6.120-22/3793-95).
Other possible rehearsal decisions, as E. A. J. Honigmann observes, include distributing parts of an
All speech to consecutive speakers, as with `
All. Against
him first: He's a very dog to the Commonalty.' (1.1.28-29/29-30), or giving one player the line while the
rest `howl or clamour or contribute what was known as "confused noise"'.
[68]
Some SHs are either demonstrably wrong or missing, or have been thought to be so by
some editors, but this fact is less of a bar than it might seem to the manuscript behind
Coriolanus having been adequately marked to serve as playbook. Where SHs seem
misassigned, some at least of the SHs cruxes facing a modern editor may have been imposed by the
compositors and so not have stood in the manuscript copy at all.[69] One
ambiguity that requires resolution occurs in the first breakdown of civil order, 3.1.185-87/1894-96,
where after the SD They all bustle about Coriolanus the first two lines of what
must be `crowd' noises appear with no SH (`Tribunes, Patricians, Citizens: what ho: | Sicinius, Brutus,
Coriolanus, Citizens.'); the previous speaker was `2 Sen.', but the words are
unlikely to be meant as his. The subsequent line, TLN 1896, reads `All. Peace,
peace, peace, stay, hold, peace'. Thomas Clayton offers various explanations, including the possibility
that it is not in fact an error because All is implicit in the SD. Or, the cause
might be an authorial SH `entered, after composition, in the wrong place'; if the error was introduced
later by compositor or scribe, it `could be due to simple omission of one of two intended uses of
All'.[70] It is also possible that two similar-looking
SHs were in the copy and that only one reached print, perhaps because scribe or compositor read them as
identical and consciously or subconsciously rejected the repetition. In this hypothesis, TLN 1894-95
were prefixed All and 1896 assigned to the Aediles, of which there seem to be at
least three on stage. If that were the case, the All at 1894 was omitted and
Aed. misread as All.[71]
In another category of SH problems, some, though perhaps not all, of what modern
editors take to be inaccurately labeled speeches may also have been introduced by scribe or
compositor. Confusion between Cominius and Coriolanus in SHs may have
been caused by misreading abbreviations (Cor and
Com); this would be even more likely if the Shakespearean original contained (or
moved quickly to) such severely shortened forms as Co and
Co.[72] The greeting of Valeria after the triumphal
return to Rome in 2.1 (TLN 1087) is by F assigned Com.; almost all modern
editions adopt Theobald's reassignment to Coriolanus on the grounds that the line is clearly his. It is at
this point in the text that the SHs for the title character switch, and as Brockbank notes, `it is likely that
the transition from Mar. to Cor. made the slip or
misreading Com. easier'.[73] If I am right about
the F manuscript being scribal, and by a scribe who preferred full- or amply-abbreviated SHs (probably
to make them line up evenly on the page), then this misreading was the scribe's; his own SH was likely to
have been Coriol., which does appear in F ten times. If he was not consistent
with his SH choices, however, and if his r and m were
more easily confused than those in Hand D of More (and in most secretary
hands they are confusables), then the misreading could be compositorial. The same misreading of a
Cor. SH as Com. is probably responsible for what is in F a
rebuke of the tribune Brutus by Cominius: `You are like to doe such businesse' (3.1.48/1734).[74]
A cluster of SH errors on bb2v suggests a damaged or for some other
reason illegible margin in the lower first column, or `problems associated with the printing of part of
quire bb, or both'.[75] Here F assigns Cominius as the speaker of `Stand
fast, we have as many friends as enemies' (3.1.230-31/1954) and to Corio.
`Come Sir, along with us' (3.1.236/1961). Most editors
transpose these SHs.
[76] Immediately below these two errors, and linked to them in cause, F gives
Mene. a five-line speech (3.1.237-41/1962-66), the first three lines of which
would more properly be spoken by Coriolanus (TLN 1962-64). Brockbank suggests that the
misassignment of TLN 1961 `precipitated the careless conflation' of the following lines into one speech
`and its misassignment to Menenius'.
[77] Rather than `carelessness',
compositor or scribe might have made an `honest' mistake: the SH at TLN 1962 may have been omitted
or been eradicated by damage, as might the rules separating speeches, and if the SH
Mene. was floating ambiguously in the margin rather than clearly aligned with TLN
1965 at `Be gone', it might have been assumed to apply to all the apparently unassigned lines.
[78] If the conflation here results from later damage to the original manuscript,
then this error, like the other suspect SH assignments in bb2
v's first column, did not affect
the original playhouse production.
Other SHs that have seemed problematic to later editors are less likely to have resulted
from scribal or compositorial error. They might have been straightened out in the playhouse, with or
without the author's help, and changed for the actors' parts. They might also have been played as they
appear in F. Not all editors have emended these SHs; to some, F Coriolanus
seems correct — or as likely to be correct as not — as it stands. Emendation in these cases
will affect our response, as any such reassignment must, but not in significant ways for the principal
characters. One common, though not universal, reassignment in 1.1 certainly alters our sense of the
`Company of Mutinous Citizens'. In F the two individualised speakers for the first 55 lines are `I.
Cit.' and `2. Cit.'; thereafter the character who argues so
articulately with Menenius is `2. Cit.'. Clearly, this distribution suggests not
only that this `Company' includes a hot-head who thinks killing Coriolanus will solve their problems, but
also the more reasonable Second Citizen who becomes their natural spokesman, a man who can see the
complexity of both their situation and Coriolanus's (as can other commoners later, like the three groups
of citizens in 2.3, or the soldiers laying cushions in 2.2). Since Capell most editors have reassigned all of
F's `2. Cit.' speeches in response to Menenius' persuasions to `I.
Cit.', on the grounds that they better fit the personality of `I.
Cit.' established in the scene's first 55 lines.[79] If F
is in error here, the error
probably stood in Shakespeare's original papers, since such a consistent scribal
or compositorial misreading of `2' as `1' is highly unlikely. Thomas Clayton suggests that possibly
Cit. was unnumbered in Shakespeare's manuscript, `specification to be added later
or to be understood but subsequently being
misunderstood in the supplying of `2'.
[80] But F
may reflect the author's own notation; it has been defended by some editors and critics since Knight in
1851, and the play can certainly be performed according to F's assignments.
[81] This seems to be a case in which F is at least as likely to be correct as not
and should therefore be left alone.
Other arguable editorial SH reassignments are less significant in effect, but more
defensible. In the Act 3 exchange in which Menenius tries to convince the tribunes to allow Coriolanus a
second chance, Hanmer (on Warburton's suggestion) reassigned one speech from F's
Menen. to the tribune Sicinius: `The service of the foote | Being once gangren'd, is
not then respected | For what before it was' (3.1.304-06/2045-47). In 1950 H. Eardley-Wilmot defended
Hanmer's reassignment on the grounds that the metaphor is out of character for Menenius and was in a
moment of inattention assigned to him by Shakespeare or compositor, and recent editions of
Coriolanus reflect the persuasiveness of the arguments for Sicinius as speaker.[82] It is only fair to note, however, that most editions from Rowe (1709) to
Brooke (1924) retain F, although they usually alter the final punctuation to `?' or `—' in order to
make it more plausible for Menenius.[83] This is a case in which the
critical arguments for reassignment are strong, but in which the F text could be played as it stands
without substantively changing the relationship between Menenius and the tribunes. Another such
instance is the exclamation `O the Gods!', SH Corio. in F, in the scene of
Coriolanus' farewell to his family and friends (4.1.37/2477). Keightley first reassigned these words to
Virgilia, but here there has been less recent agreement than for the reassignment in 3.1; of the eight post-
1950 editions sampled by Clayton, three `read
with F, the other five against'.
[84] The critical grounds for reassignment are cogent here, too, however. In
each of his other speeches in 4.1, both before and after this ejaculation, Coriolanus argues for stoic
endurance and patience as the appropriate response to his banishment. Virgilia's only F line in this
scene, `Oh heavens! O heavens!' (4.1.12/2448), would make `O the Gods!' seem in character for her, and
TLN 2477 would be a natural wifely outcry at Volumnia's reminder of how desperate Coriolanus'
circumstance really are: `Determine on some course | More then a wilde exposture, to each chance | That
start's i'th'way before thee' (4.1.35-37/2474-76). If
Coriolanus does accurately
reproduce the book-keeper's copy, however, its speech-assignment would not significantly alter our
understanding of the protagonist.
[85]
