University of Virginia Library

A. W. Pollard, A New Shakespeare Quarto: The Tragedy of King Richard II (1916), pp. 51-53. Cf. W. W. Greg, The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare (1942), p. 121.

Unless otherwise specified, all references to readings are to Sidney Lee, Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of The First Folio Edition, 1623 (1902). Richard II begins on b6r and ends on d5r.

W. W. Greg, Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, no. 141(e).

This account of the descent of the quartos from one another follows in the main the discussion and tables given by Pollard, pp. 4-18, 33-51, where proof of the relationship is presented in extenso.

Editorial Problem, p. 6, n. 1.

Pollard (p. 59) points out that the nonsense line of Q1,This sweares he, as he is princesse iust, is partially emended by Q3 toThis sweares he, as he is a Prince iust, The Folio (c6vb 33) completes the emendation:This sweares he, as he is a Prince, is iust. Instead of an emendation, this could as well be a correction originating with the manuscript prompt-copy which, it will be argued below, contributed readings to the Folio.

Editorial Problem, p. 15, n. 1.

"Shakespeare Quartos as Prompt-Copies," RES, XVIII (1942), 129-143.

"The Second Quarto of A King and No King, 1625," Studies in Bibliography, IV (1951), 166-170.

Alfred W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos (1909), pp. 126-127. All other citations of Pollard refer to his facsimile edition of Q3.

That is, the readings of Q1, which a manuscript prompt-book can be assumed to have shared.

Or, by the alternate theory, the manuscript prompt-book.

Since there can be no reason why the Folio editor should tamper with a line which, considered alone as it stands in Q3 and Q5, presents no problem, this instance would seem to be deference on his part to an imperfect collation in his copy rather than an example of spontaneous botching. Apparently when his quarto was collated in the theatre with the early prompt-book, the word what had been struck out of the printed text without the addition of the necessary worse. As a result, he must have changed spoke to spoken in an attempt to perfect the halting meter at the same time that he was following his "corrected" copy. Such an emendation could be made as well by the compositor as by the editor, however.

Pollard, p. 89. In the third example the reading had could easily be a compositor's variant for hald which would be overlooked if proof were read in the printing-house without reference to copy.

They are listed in toto in the several tables in Pollard's essay.

A matter obviously due to editorial policy is the substitution in the Folio of Heaven where the quartos have God. King James objected to the use of the word God on the stage.

This is an application of the principles of W. W. Greg, "The Rationale of Copy-Text," Studies in Bibliography, III (1950), 19-36. From the discussion below it appears that in the "deposition scene" an editor would always follow the Folio readings except, of course, in cases of obvious error.

Of the corruptions which the Folio eliminates, two originated by Q4 and one by Q5 may be discounted, because they occur in lines which it omits, but this in no way affects the proportions indicated here. Pollard, pp. 49-51.

Included as a Folio-Q5 agreement is the reading com'st (Q3 comes, Q5 comest) in clrb 50. The elision of syllables without quarto precedent is a frequent Folio practice.

Q3 misassigns Northumberland's lines to Willoughby, who has just spoken, and repeats the Willoughby speech-heading. Q5, following Q4's attempt at emendation, gives the last line of the first Willoughby speech to Northumberland. The Folio (c3va 43-46) restores the reading of Q1 by leaving the first Willoughby speech intact and correctly assigning the other to Northumberland.

This includes all misprints which result in an English word, however obvious they may be, but excludes such readings as Folio-Q3 oppression, Q5 opptession (d1rb 43), where the typographical error results in nonsense. In either case the Folio always agrees with the correct reading, which leaves such variants without significance anyway.

In this study none of the figures reporting the occurrence of punctuation marks include instances in which the dissenting quarto is incorrect by Elizabethan standards. The Folio could in such a case agree with the other quarto fortuitously by attempting to correct its copy. Moreover, the last statement made above does not include the somewhat more important cases in which the Folio agrees with either Q3 or Q5 in the use of a period within a speech. This group is treated below separately.

This interesting alternation of type-pages bears no relation to the alternation of the two Folio compositors. The first of them was among those set by the man traditionally called Compositor B; the others are the work of Compositor A. Cf. Edwin Eliot Willoughby, The Printing of the First Folio (1932), p. 56. Folio-Q3 agreements in other kinds of punctuation discussed below are found on c1v, c5v, c6v, and d3r.

Folio elisions are of no value in determining the quarto used as copy, for their evidence is evenly divided. In many cases— though by no means in all—the Folio for metrical purposes elides a weak syllable, oftenest the ending of past participles, whether the quartos do or not. On eight occasions, all occurring before the lines for which Q5 was the copy, the two quartos disagree with each other in eliding syllables. Half of these are without significance because the Folio agrees (twice each) with the quarto which has the more regularly metrical reading. In the other four instances the Folio follows the reading which fails to elide and produces a hypermetrical line, but as this agreement is twice with one quarto and twice with the other, it gives no information as to the copy.

The Folio hand, where all the quartos have wound, is obviously due to the compositor's memorial confusion with the Hands of the preceding line. Wound rhymes with ground in the next line.

This is obviously a misprint for Musicke plaies., for Musicke is the spelling found both in Q4, which was the copy for Q5, and in another occurrence of the word in the same line in Q5. The corresponding stage-direction in Q1-3 reads, with variant accidentals, the musicke plaies. The Q4 compositor probably dropped the article so that the stage-direction would not run over to the next line, and the Q5 compositor may have run the words together in order to be able to separate the direction from the text with a sufficient amount of space to prevent the confusion of one with the other. Apparently for the same reason he omitted punctuation and ran words together within the line of text, although the improper spacing in Q4 may also have had some influence on him here.