University of Virginia Library

III

The problem remains of attempting to define the beginning of the "reprinted passage" in I.ii-iii (signatures B3-4v in Q1, B3-4 in Q2). Gericke, Thomas, and Greg have suggested that Q1 probably began serving as copy for Q2 at I.ii.46, the present writer at line 54, and Professor Duthie at line 58. In the nature of the case definitive exactitude is perhaps impossible, for in the twilight zone between the point where the compositor (Compositor A) was probably following manuscript copy and the point where he was probably following quarto copy it is difficult to distinguish with any great certainty between "consultation" of Q1 and its use "as copy." It is nevertheless possible, I believe, to narrow the limits of the beginning of the reprinted passage to within the four lines from I.ii.50 to 53a inclusive, and there is, furthermore, some basis for the supposition that the compositor began using Q1 as copy for Q2 at I.ii.52.

In the first few lines after the earliest possible beginning of the reprinted passage (I.ii.46), there are four "substantive" variants between the texts of the quartos, one in line 47 (Q1 "with", Q2 "by"), two in line 48 (Q1 "backward . . . with", Q2 "giddie . . . by"), and one in line 53a (Q2 "I pray thee", omitted from Q1).[20] Although none

constitutes a manuscript link, these Q2 variants nevertheless betray the existence of manuscript authority extending through line 53a. There being no evidence of manuscript authority after that line, we may assume that the Q2 text beginning with line 53b was probably set up directly from Q1. (If a leaf was missing from the foul papers, line 53b is accordingly the earliest part of the text that might have stood at the head of such a leaf.) Therefore we may designate the beginning of line 53b as a probable later limit of the beginning of the reprinted passage.

A probable earlier limit is suggested by variation between the quartos in such "accidental" features of the text proper as punctuation and spelling.[21] In the four lines between I.ii.46 and 49 inclusive, Q1 and Q2 vary six times in punctuation (twice in line 46, once in 47, once in 48, and twice in 49). For convenience of comparison this figure may be expressed as 150 punctuation-variants per hundred lines. On the other hand, in the eighty-two lines following line 49 (I.ii.50-I.iii.35 inclusive), the quartos vary 34 times in punctuation. This figure may be expressed as 42 punctuation-variants per hundred lines, or almost four (3.6) times less than in the four lines immediately preceding line 50. However, the drop in variation at line 50 is actually a good deal more pronounced than this figure would suggest, for in the sixteen lines following line 49 (I.ii.50-66 inclusive) the quartos vary in punctuation only four times (once each in lines 54, 55, 58-9, and 66), or 25 times per hundred lines. Accordingly, we may say that in the sixteen lines immediately following line 49 the variation in punctuation becomes six times less than in the four lines immediately preceding line 50. The compositor may well have been following the punctuation of Q1 from line 50 on; but in any case his failure to follow its punctuation before line 50 suggests the possibility that he was there working mainly from manuscript copy, either reproducing its variant punctuation or preferring his own. Therefore we may tentatively designate the beginning of line 50 as an earlier limit of the beginning of the reprinted passage.

The inference from variation in punctuation is confirmed by variation in spelling between the quartos. In the seven lines between I.ii.46 and 52 inclusive, Q1 and Q2 vary 7 times in spelling (twice in line 47, once each in 48 and 49, twice in 51, and once in 52). This figure may be expressed as 100 spelling-variants per hundred lines. On the other

hand, in the seventy-nine lines following line 52 (I.ii.53a-I.iii.35 inclusive) the quartos vary 45 times in spelling. This figure may be expressed as 57 spelling-variants per hundred lines, or about half as many as in the seven lines preceding line 53a. However, the drop in spelling-variation at line 53a is actually much greater than this figure would suggest, for in the thirteen lines following line 52 (I.ii.53a-66 inclusive) the quartos vary in spelling only once (in line 55), or almost eight times per hundred lines. Accordingly, we may say that in the thirteen lines immediately following line 52 the variation in spelling between Q1 and Q2 becomes over twelve times less than in the seven lines immediately preceding line 53a. The compositor may well have been following the spelling of Q1 from line 53a on; but in any case his failure to follow its spelling before line 53a suggests the possibility that he was there working mainly from manuscript copy, either reproducing its variant spelling or preferring his own. Because of other evidence presently to be considered I do not believe that the evidence of spelling necessarily enforces a shift of the earlier limit of the reprinted passage to the beginning of line 53a. However that may be, the evidence of spelling supports that of punctuation in suggesting manuscript copy before line 50; and accordingly we may designate the beginning of that line as a probable earlier limit of the beginning of the reprinted passage.

Within the probable earlier and later limits of the beginning of the reprinted passage (I.ii.50-53a inclusive) two further kinds of evidence require attention. One is textual variance, specifically the Q2 reading "I pray thee" (omitted from Q1) at line 53a. The other is contamination, specifically two bibliographical links between the quartos at line 52. One of these, as Professor Wilson suggests,[22] consists of the Q1-2 concurrence in the unabbreviated form of Romeo's speech-heading, this being an abnormal form for Q2 Compositor A; the other consists of the common emphasis capital of the textual reading "Planton" (Q2 "Plantan"), this being the only emphasis capital on Q2 signature B3. (These bibliographical links afford the earliest demonstrable evidence of contamination in the reprinted passage; they are followed almost immediately by a third, concurrence of the quartos in another unabbreviated speech-heading for Romeo at line 53b.) The problem, of course, is to resolve the fact of manuscript influence in line 53a with the fact of contamination in line 52. If we exclude

annotation as a logical improbability (since Shakespeare's foul papers were in the hands of the compositor), there are two ways of interpreting this rather contradictory evidence. We may suppose, first, that the compositor followed his manuscript copy through line 53a, thus deriving the textual variant at that point directly from manuscript copy and earlier deriving from Q1 the unabbreviated speech-heading and the emphasis capital of line 52. Following this line of argument we might designate I.ii.53b as the probable beginning of the reprinted passage.

Or we may suppose, alternatively, that the compositor shifted from manuscript to quarto copy at some point after line 49 but before line 52, thus deriving the bibliographical links of line 52 directly from Q1 and subsequently glancing back at his only-just-discarded manuscript copy for the textual variant of line 53a. Initially this hypothesis may appear unacceptable through its assumption that after having shifted to quarto copy the compositor would reverse his usual procedure and consult manuscript copy. However, if we think of the compositor as working mainly from "principal" copy (usually manuscript) and intermittently consulting "auxiliary" copy (usually quarto), we may also, conversely, imagine him as working for a few lines mainly from quarto copy and occasionally consulting manuscript copy. Moreover, if a leaf was missing from the foul papers, a certain amount of overlap of manuscript and quarto influence on the text of Q2 would perhaps be inevitable as the compositor approached the end of his manuscript copy and sought to ascertain the exact point in Q1 where the manuscript would leave off (it being assumed that this point had not been clearly marked in the quarto copy). In any case, a prominent characteristic of the compositor's work elsewhere in Q2 suggests the probability of the second procedure. As Messrs. Cantrell and Williams point out, it is a significant fact that except in the reprinted passage the speech-headings of Q2 are almost invariably independent of those in Q1, for Compositor A (who set all but six pages of Q2), although he intermittently consulted auxiliary copy (Q1) in the matter of "text proper," appears generally to have followed the speech-headings of his principal copy (the foul papers). Therefore it seems unlikely (although it is of course not impossible) that he would here have consulted Q1 (auxiliary copy) for a speech-heading if he had still been working mainly from manuscript (principal copy). Thus it follows that when he derived Romeo's unabbreviated speech-heading from Q1 at line 52 he had probably already substituted Q1 for the foul papers as his "principal" copy. (After I.ii.53a Q1 must have been his sole copy until the end of I.iii.35, where he apparently returned to working

mainly from the foul papers.) Accordingly, we may advance the probable later limit of the reprinted passage to the beginning of line 52.

Within the narrower limits of the two lines between I.ii.49 and 52 there are two variations in spelling between the quartos (both in line 51). Since these suggest minimal influence of manuscript copy, we may designate the beginning of line 52 (despite the single spelling-variant of that line, apparently the compositor's normalization of an aberrant copy-spelling[23]) as the probable beginning of the reprinted passage. The evidence adduced to the preceding argument is summed up in the following table, which locates the occurrences (between I.ii.46 and 66 inclusive) of each textual phenomenon discussed and gives (where appropriate) the total of occurrences in each line: