University of Virginia Library

The Second Quarto of A King and No King, 1625
Berta Sturman

THE copy for A King and No King was entered in the Stationers' Register to Edward Blount on 7 August, 1618. There is no record of a transfer of the copy to Thomas Walkley, who published the first quarto in 1619. The dedicatory epistle addressed to Sir Henry Nevill which appears only in the first quarto seems to indicate that the quarto had been printed from a manuscript which the publisher had secured from Nevill.[1] It is therefore possible that the first quarto was printed from a private transcript without the permission of the King's Company. The statement on the title-page of the second edition of 1625 "And now the second time Printed, according to the true Copie" may indicate that the first quarto was not from copy which had been furnished by the company.

The second quarto, containing many prompt notes, seems to have been printed from the official book which the actors used in the playhouse. There are not only many added stage directions in this edition but also many small deletions and minor alterations in the text. In spite of the fact that these circumstances would seem to indicate two different manuscripts used as copy for the two quartos, there are a number of curious similarities in the printing of the two editions. These similarities seem to suggest that the second quarto was printed from a marked copy of the first. The differences between the two texts suggest, furthermore, that the copy for the second quarto was the official playhouse copy with the prompter's notes.

The title-page of the first quarto reads: "A King and no King. Acted at the Globe, by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by Francis Beamount, and Iohn Flecher." The second quarto substitutes "Blacke-Fryars" for "Globe," and adds the statement about the copy. The arrangement of the title-pages is quite different, but the curious spelling of the authors' names is repeated in both quartos.

The first quarto type-page measures 91 mm. from margin to margin. The Q2 page is narrower, measuring 88 mm. from margin to margin. The type size is the same in both quartos. The additional stage directions in the second quarto make it impossible to print that text within fewer pages

than the number occupied by the text of the earlier edition. Although the number of lines per page is the same, the second quarto, therefore, could not be a page for page reprint. Moreover, while the size of type is the same, the lines of the second quarto are 3 mm. shorter, thus making a line for line reprint difficult. Yet in spite of this difference in space, the line endings of the prose passages show a startling correspondence.[2] The passage at line 66, Act V, scene i, has the line endings: laming of, for you, have a leg, like a, of my con-, like a, verie person, leave you, are much, in both quartos. Since the lines of the second quarto are a trifle shorter, however, one would expect the shorter words like of, you, leg, a, to be carried over to the beginning of the succeeding line, particularly as the last line of the paragraph is so very short that the compositor could not have lost a line of space by so doing. Such correspondences, then, can hardly be accidental.

In some of these prose speeches, the passage at line 96, Act III, scene iii, and that at line 31, Act V, scene ii, for example, the compositor of the second quarto, because of some variation in spelling, found himself with extra space at his disposal. Instead of filling up the line as usual, he sometimes spaced out the words so that the line arrangement of the first quarto is preserved.

At the beginning of the second scene of Act III, Bessus has a long prose soliloquy. For the first twenty-five lines of this speech the second quarto faithfully follows the line arrangement of the first. Then at line 26 a word is lost, and by line 35 the second quarto is three words behind the first. In the following line the words "to account" have been dropped out, apparently by accident, restoring the line for line correspondence.

Two other passages may link the first two quartos. At the beginning of scene iv, Act V, five lines of Arbaces' speech are omitted in Q2. Instead of printing the half lines marking the beginning and end of the cut in a single line of type, Q2 prints them as separate lines, an awkward arrangement which may refer back to a deletion marked on the printed page of Q1. A second passage seems to contain an error perpetrated by the printer of the first quarto which has been only partially corrected in the second quarto. At line 118, Act I, scene i, the first quarto has:

The compositor has here omitted the speech head which ought to indicate a change in speakers. It looks as though the manuscript perhaps looked like this: and the compositor attached the speech head to the last line of Arbaces' speech. In the second quarto the missing speech head has been supplied, making the passage read:

A number of errors seem to have been carried over from the first quarto to the second. The word "Souldier" at line 59, Act I, scene i, is singular in the first two quartos; it has been corrected to the plural form in subsequent editions. Line 269 in the same scene, which has been emended to "To talke but idly," is given in Q1 as "to balke but I desire," in Q2 as "to balke but I defie." The misreading "balke" for "talke" thus occurs in all the early quartos. At line 71, Act V, scene iii, Q1 reads "slaue, my key" which Q2 partly corrects to "slaue my toe." Subsequent quartos change the "slaue" of the first two quartos to "hurts."

Still another correspondence between the first two quartos should perhaps be noted. At the beginning of the second Act, and at line 45 of the first scene of Act III, the stage directions of the first quarto are sufficiently long that it was necessary to carry the directions into a second line. This second line, in both instances, is not centered. The second quarto copies this unusual arrangement.

The first quarto was printed in 88 pages, the text ending on M2 verso. There are 38 lines to a page with many stage directions centered to occupy a separate line of type. The second quarto was printed in 91 pages, the text ending in the middle of M3 recto. Again there are 38 lines to a page, but there are more blank lines setting off stage directions than in the first quarto, so that the line arrangement of the first quarto looks more crowded.

In the last two gatherings, however, the arrangement of the second quarto is quite different from that of the first. Beginning with signature L, the number of lines per page is reduced from 38 to 36. From this point onward even brief stage directions are centered to occupy separate lines, and the blank space above stage directions is increased in width. What seems to have occurred is this. The compositor had before him a copy which seemed to contain more material than the first quarto. The first edition, however, had been printed with an initial blank leaf and two final blank leaves, an arrangement which the Elizabethan printer considered undesirable since it required as much labor to print one leaf as four. The compositor of the second quarto, therefore, eliminated the initial blank leaf by beginning his text on A2 instead of on A3. The extra material would doubtless go to fill up the three blank leaves. Throughout most of the work, the arrangement seemed to be succeeding until, at signature L, he was printing material which appeared a page and a half earlier in Q1. At that point, perhaps because a cut of five lines reduced the material yet to be printed, the compositor realized that he would still have an undesirable number of blank leaves at the end. To prevent this, he reduced the number of lines per

page and stretched out his copy as far as possible. By this procedure, and with the help of an ornamental tail piece, he gained a leaf and a half, leaving only three blank pages instead of the six of the first quarto.

Since misspellings and other errors in the first quarto reappear in the second, it becomes probable that the latter was printed from the former. The similarities in typographical arrangement increase the probability. It is difficult to explain the unexpected divergence of the last two gatherings if we postulate a manuscript copy for Q2, but it becomes easier to account for it if the first copy were used as copy for the second. The conclusion to be drawn would seem to be that Q2 is a reprint of Q1.

Q2, however, was printed from the "true copie," to all appearances from the official stage copy. The nature of the differences between the two texts thus becomes significant. Except for one cut of five lines already referred to, the text has not been noticeably altered. No appreciable additions have been made, and differences in readings which do appear are alterations of single words or brief phrases. No change has been made which affects plot or characterization. In short, no textual addition or alteration of sufficient interest to warrant collation of a printed copy of Q1 with a playhouse MS can be found.

The additions which have been made to Q1 consist of marginalia which seem to be all of a prompt nature. Nearly every stage direction has been expanded, usually in such a way as to make the direction more explicit. Thus "Enter Arbaces and Tigranes, with attendants" becomes "Enter Arbaces and Tigranes two Kings, &c. The two Gentlemen.", and "Enter Panthæa" becomes "Enter Panthæa and 1 Gent." Musical directions have been added. A few exits which had been unmarked in the first quarto are marked in the second. At least one entrance direction, "Flourish, Enter one running." on D3v appears only in the second quarto. For the second quarto the exit directions have been made more explicit so that characters' names are frequently added to such directions, and group exits are frequently broken up. One entrance in the first act has been printed twice so that a warning of three lines is given. One very interesting direction in the fourth act has been expanded to indicate setting: "Enter Tigranes in prison." In two places the technical prompter's note "Exeunt cleere" appears in the second quarto. This note also occurs in the prompt manuscript of Heywood's The Captives and in the manuscript prompt notes in the Chicago copy of A Looking Glasse for London and England.[3] In a stage direction in the last act an actor's name occurs: "Enter Seruant, Will. Adkinson."[4]

It seems unlikely that a publisher would deem these notes of sufficient

general interest to hire someone to collate a copy of the quarto with a theatrical manuscript to secure them. If, however, the publisher had acquired a copy of the quarto which had been used as prompt text, i.e. "the true copie," the prompter's notes would be carried over into the printed page, giving us just such a text as we have in Q2..

The existence of a copy of the first quarto which had been used as the official stage copy would seem to indicate that the King's Men, on some occasions at least, used a printed copy for the official book. One may conjecture, however, that the original manuscript was lost, or destroyed in the Globe fire in 1613, thus necessitating the use of a private transcript as copy for the first quarto. The existence of a copy of Q1 with manuscript playhouse notes which was later used as copy for the second quarto would imply that there was an unrecorded revival of the play, possibly at the Blackfriars, between 1619 and 1625.

Notes