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Notes
Read before the English Institute on September 9th, 1950, under the title "A Shakespearian Editorial Problem Requiring an Eclectic-Text Solution." The paper has been slightly revised and expanded, but it is not exhaustive, and it is still presented, as it was originally, as a tentative piece of work.
Throughout this paper the act, scene, and line numbers of Romeo and Juliet are those of the old Cambridge edition.
Gericke in Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XIV (1879), 270-273; Hjort in MLR, XXI (1926), 140-146; Greg, Principles of Emendation in Shakespeare (British Academy Lecture, 1928), reprinted in Aspects of Shakespeare (1933), where the relevant pages are 144-147, 175-181; Thomas in RES, XXV (1949), 110-114.
The first link in this portion of the play is the spelling "Godgigoden" (both Qq.) in I ii 57; the last is the reading Q1 "aleauen" Q2 "a leuen" in I iii 36, after which word we cannot in Q2 sheet B assume dependence on Q1.
In the Times Literary Supplement. The article on Romeo and Juliet appeared in the issue of August 14th.
One reason for suggesting transcription of the authentic manuscript instead of the use of actual leaves of that manuscript will appear later on when we discuss II ii 189 — Q1 "Now will I to my Ghostly fathers Cell", Q2 "Hence will I to my ghostly Friers close cell".
Mr. Fredson Bowers suggests to me that perhaps I have not done justice to the claims of Q2's "puffing". He thinks that it may be more appropriate in the context than I have allowed. The word may be intended, as he points out, not so much to refer to locomotion as to call up in the hearer's or reader's mind "the frequent pictures of clouds in the shape of cherubic heads with lips pursed as if puffing breezes and winds to earth." It is an excellent point. And yet, despite this, I cannot resist the feeling that the excellence of Q1's "pacing", and the fact that "puffes" occurs in I iv in a passage sufficiently like the present one to make memorial confusion eminently possible, render at least not unreasonable the view which I have taken above.
The Q2 compositor can hardly be responsible for associating two passages so far apart. It must surely have been Scribe E. I take it that Scribe E must have known the play. I dare say he was a member of the acting company which owned the play.
Since there is a memorial error in a portion of Q2 which depends on handwritten copy, it would seem clear that that handwritten copy was a transcription of the Shakespearian manuscript, and not leaves of that manuscript itself. See note 13 above. Incidentally, I cannot forbear referring to a third case in which I think there is memorial corruption in Q2. This is a case in which I cannot be sure whether Q2 was set up from an edited page of Q1 or from manuscript copy. It occurs at III i 118. Tybalt has killed Mercutio. Benvolio tells Romeo that Tybalt is coming back again. Romeo says, in Q1, "A liue in triumph and Mercutio slaine?"—which makes good sense. In Q2, he says, rather strangely, "He gan in triumph and Mercutio slaine,". I presume that "gan" is an error for "gon". It is odd that Romeo should speak of Tybalt as "gone" when he has just been told that Tybalt is coming back. But at III i 87-88 Mercutio, dying, says "I am sped, Is he gone and hath nothing." (Q2). I think that at the later point Scribe E was influenced by a recollection of this. The words "Is he gone" are entirely appropriate at the earlier point, since Tybalt has there just fled.
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