University of Virginia Library

VII

Since the evidence, then, points clearly to the use of Q as copy or basis for F, is there anything to determine what procedure was followed? Was the copy simply consulted, or was it physically amended, or was it transcribed, or was there a blend of more than one of these methods?

The use of two quartos seems to indicate amendment or correction, and the facility of using both recto and verso of a quarto leaf when difficulty was encountered. Marginal (including possibly interlinear) correction there certainly seems to have been. This was on the whole feasible. Many quarto pages could have been collated with an authoritative manuscript and corrected without much trouble, and would provide copy no worse than an ordinary corrected proof; for example, of the first two quarto signatures—14 pages of text—only two, B1v and B4v, would be rather crowded after correction. The main difficulty would arise from Q omissions, passages to be inserted in the Q copy. Here it is worth noting that, in general, there was more blank space on the Q page than is usually realized. As the photographs reproduced below will confirm, there was often room for ten or a dozen lines to be inserted, not to mention minor corrections. No doubt some of the smaller insertions would be made on the Q page; the longer or more involved could be written on slips of paper and attached to the page, or included as separate leaves; or they might even be set from the manuscript itself—though this might raise other difficulties. The top half of E1r (of Q2), given below (plate VI), is an example of the lighter type of correction; the lower half illustrates some of the relatively few more difficult stretches.

It is by such a process of correction that many F errors, the existence of which has already been recognized on literary grounds (in, e. g. H. T. Price, The Text of Henry V, 1920), may, and, in some cases, must, have originated. The test is to edit the quarto as the F printers may be presumed to have done, and watch the errors arising in the process. Sample pages are given below. As far as possible, illustrations are drawn from the Q2 copy, since its use, and the evidence for its use, are scarcer (because of its greater conformity with Q1) than for Q3, and Q3 has been amply illustrated above.

(a) Excessive deletion:

II.i.26-27

• Q3 Bar.
  Good morrow ancient Pistoll. heere comes ancient Pistoll, I prethee Nim be quiet.
  
  Nim.
  How do you my host?
  
  
• F Bar.
  Heere comes Ancient Pistoll and his wife: good Corporall be patient heere. How now mine Hoaste Pistoll?
  
  

Price (op. cit., pp. 52-3) points out the dramatic necessity of giving the last sentence to Nim, as in Q, in view of Pistol's reply, "Base Tyke, cal'st thou mee Hoste. . . ." The F omission of the prefix "Nim." is explicable on the assumption that the corrector of the Q copy wrote his corrections, as he might well do here, for want of space, in such a way as to obscure it.

That the corrector sometimes drew an arrow or equivalent pointer from a marginal addition to its position in the text of Q, and seemed (to the compositor) to delete in the process the words printed in its path, is suggested by the proximity of some F omissions to passages where an insertion was necessary. For example:-

V.i.75-76

• Q3 Well France farewell, newes haue I certainly
  That Doll is sicke. One malady of France
  
  
• F Newes haue I that my Doll is dead i'th Spittle of a malady of France
  
  

Here the corrector, besides deleting "certainly" and inserting "my" before "Doll", would require to delete "sicke" and substitute for it "dead i'th Spittle". If this were done in the left-hand margin, a pointer drawn to indicate an insertion after "sicke" might well run through, or seem to run through, the phrase "Well France farewell," and account for its omission in F, where it is just what is wanted to fill the gap in the verse. The passage and its correction are illustrated below in Plate II.

(b) Inadequate deletion:

On a theory of marginal correction, it seems clear that the last two words in the F passage given below are to be explained as superfluous, and their presence due to an oversight after the insertion made at the correct point earlier in the line.

II.i.39-40

• Q Pist.
  What, dost thou push, thou prickeard cur of Iseland
  
  
• F Pist.
  Pish for thee, Island dogge: thou prickeard cur of Island.
  
  

Another probable example of the same kind, where the Q "and" is superfluous in F, and should have been deleted, is II.ii.13-14:

• Q My Lord of Cambridge, and my Lord-of Massham,
  And you my gentle Knight, giue me your thoughts,
  
  
• F My Lord of Cambridge, and my kinde Lord of Masham,
  And you my gentle Knight, giue me your thoughts:
  
  

Similarly, deletion applied to the wrong one of two identical phrases in two successive lines, and applied, or interpreted, inadequately, seems to be what is needed to explain and smooth out the F tangle:-

I.ii.207-8

• As many Arrowes loosed seuerall wayes
  
  
• Come to one marke: as many wayes meet in one towne,
  
  

The trouble seems to have originated with Q:-

• As many arrowes losed seuerall wayes, fly to one marke:
  
  
• As many seuerall wayes meete in one Towne:
  
  

The corrector, we may suppose, intended to delete "seuerall wayes" from the first Q line, but instead deleted the same phrase from the second, and in such a manner as to leave "wayes" undeleted, or at least legible, so that it was later recovered for the sense. Allowing for the other minor corrections, the F version should therefore read, more smoothly, and perhaps more sensibly:-

• As many arrows, loosed, come to one mark;
  
  
• As many several ways meet in one town;
  
  

(c) Errors arising out of transposition:

The corrector seems also to have used single or double arrows or a similar device to indicate transfer or transposition, and sometimes in such a way as to leave the process incomplete or liable to be misinterpreted. At two important points, for example, where editors adopt the Q arrangement, or Q lines omitted by F, a method of inadequate transfer seems to furnish the probable explanation of the F error.

IV.iii.11-16

• Q2 Cla.
  Farewell kind Lord, fight valiantly to day,
  And yet in truth I do thee wrong,
  For thou art made on the true sparkes of honour.
  
  
• F Bedf.
  Farwell good Salisbury, & good luck go with thee:
  And yet I doe thee wrong, to mind thee of it,
  For thou art fram'd of the firme truth of valour.
  
  Exe.
  Farwell kind Lord: fight valiantly to day.
  
  Bedf.
  He is as full of Valour as of Kindnesse,
  Princely in both.
  
  

It is agreed that the second and third lines in F ought to follow the fourth as part of Exeter's speech. The error is usually attributed to a marginal insertion of these two lines, and a mistake as to the correct point of insertion. The theory of corrected Q copy for F provides a somewhat similar explanation, and at the same time supplies a reason why the two lines should have been inserted at all. If the missing speeches of Bedford were added to Q where the immediately following stage-direction provides some space, or at the foot of the page, where there is plenty of room, the first of these speeches could then be transposed with that of Cla. (corrected to Exe.) by pointers connecting the two speech-prefixes. The printer might then erroneously transpose the two lines thus connected, leaving the intervening lines (12-13) as they stood. The process is conjecturally illustrated on Plate VI below.

IV.iii.48: The F omission of the Q line

• And say, these wounds I had on Crispins day.
  
  

also occurs at a point where a transposition sign might be attached to the line above it, and is thus very similar to the preceding example. Q3 reads:-

• F line
• And say, to morrow is S. Crispins day:
  
  46
• [12 lines] 51-63
• Then shal he strip his sleeues, & shew his scars,
  
  47
• And say, these wounds I had on Crispins day.
  
  48
• And Gentlemen in England now a bed,
  
  64

(d) Erroneous incorporation from marginal corrections:

There are two outstanding examples of this:-

The resulting F version of this passage reads:-

The intrusion of "will" into the third last F line is curious. Editors have managed to incorporate it, and possibly to make sense of it, but have fought shy of explanations. Yet, on the basis of corrected Q2 as copy for F, the reason for its presence, and its lack of authenticity, may be demonstrated. It will be observed that, owing to a number of natural associations, here and in the immediate context, Q has mistaken the position of the two lines "And your maiestie . . . the gloue." The corrector, to restore the true order, would transfer either the two lines to their proper position below, or the succeeding eight lines (duly corrected) to theirs above. He would also correct the prefix "Soul." and write in the margin, or above the prefix, the F form "Will." In either case, it could easily be read as for insertion between "And" and "auouchment" in the line above. And, one passage or the other to which it belonged being due for transfer, what more natural than that it should go with it, besides being inserted, correctly, as the speechprefix for "Soul."? Since the lineation of the first four Q lines is different in Q3, so as to make this error impossible, it seems certain that here Q2 was used. This is confirmed by the detailed collation of this page (sig. F2r) given below. In Q3 the critical passage is arranged, differently:- (2) The other outstanding example of erroneous incorporation in F of marginal correction from Q copy occurs in an extremely corrupt Q passage, V.i.75-83, part of which has already been dealt with, and which exhibits in F all the symptoms of corrected copy—common errors, punctuation, and spelling; and F omissions due to the heavy correction and the difficulty of the copy. Here the word "cudgeld" (line 82) spoils the metre, and is obviously in some way connected with the same word three lines earlier. Editors, with the exception of Pope, have apparently been tied to the authority of F, and allowed the word to stand. A comparison of the Q version, however, and a consideration of the marginal corrections necessary to transform it into the F version, suggest a simple explanation—the word has been duly inserted in its proper place, but also caught up again from the end of the insertion, which would stretch down the right-hand margin so as to place the word opposite or above the end of line 82, thus:- It is to be remarked, further, that:-