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The first quarto of the tragedy of Gorboduc, written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, appeared on September 22, 1565, from the press of William Griffith. Its title, The Tragedie of Gorboduc, has been usually adopted by later editors. The second quarto, which appeared in 1570 with the imprint of John Day, bears the title The Tragidie of Ferrex and Porrex, a form that editors have often adopted as a subtitle.[1] Despite the difference in the title, both are the same play, performed by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple before the Queen on January 18, 1561. The first quarto, it is evident, comes from an unauthorized source; the second quarto probably appeared because the authors were dissatisfied with the corruptions of the first.

In an address to the reader in Q2, Day arraigns the first quarto and its printer. After declaring that the authors never intended for the play to be published, he continues:

yet one W.G. getting a copie therof at some yongmans hand that lacked a litle money and much discretion, in the last great plage . . . put it forth excedingly corrupted: euen as if by meanes of a broker for hire, he should haue entised into his house a faire maide and done her villanie, and after all to bescratched her face, torne her appareil, berayed and disfigured her, and then thrust her out of doores dishonested. In such plight after long wandring she came at length home . . . to her frendes . . . . They, the authors I meane, . . . haue for common honestie and shamefastnesse new apparelled, trimmed, and attired her in such forme as she was before.

Such hyperbole is only in part justified. Although some one hundred and fifty substantive changes are made in Q1 readings, Q2 retains at least five errors of Q1 and introduces some nine manifest errors of its own. Finally, an eight-line passage is omitted in Q2, perhaps for political reasons.

Moreover, despite these divergencies and despite Day's harsh judgment of Griffith's work, Q1 was not so dishonested that it could not be corrected to serve as copy-text for Q2. It is evident that Day did not print from manuscript:

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certain bibliographical features are present that show that Q1, heavily corrected, was used as the copy-text for Q2.[2]

The most obvious bibliographical detail that shows this dependence of Q2 on Q1 is a unique "white-space" that occurs in the same place in both quartos. In both texts, when a new sentence begins in mid-line it follows closely on the full stop of the preceding sentence. In Q2 there are twenty-four such mid-line sentence beginnings following a full stop or a question mark. But in Q1, at D1.26, a large white-space appears, measuring eleven millimetres. In Q2 at F2v.21 (IV.ii.142)[3] a similar large white-space appears in the identical place, this time measuring four millimetres. When the invariable practice of both quartos is to have no such white-space between sentences in mid-line, it is quite conclusive that in this single instance, and at the same place in the text, both quartos agree in such a space.

Other details confirm the evidence indicated by this unique white-space. For example, in both texts in the "domme shew" before the first act, Gorboduc is referred to as "Duke Gorboduc"; he is listed in the names of the speakers as "King of great Brittaine" in both, and in the dumb show before the fourth act he is called "King." Again, at I.ii.60, the Q1 reading, "The Realme deuided into two sondrie partes," is retained in Q2 despite its extrametrical and redundant effect.[4] At I.ii.233 in both texts, Philander, addressing the King, uses "My lordes," although his words clearly indicate that he is not speaking to the assembled nobles. At IV.i.68, in the line "Nor neuer bode I painefull throwes for thee," bode is surely a mistake for bore. At III.i.103 final punctuation for the last line of Gorboduc's speech is omitted in both quartos. And at IV.i.23-26 the incorrect punctuation of Q1, along with a possible incorrect repetition, is retained in Q2:

O my swete childe,
My deare Ferrex, my Joye, my lyues delyght.
Is my welbeloued sonne, is my swete childe,
My deare Ferrex, my Joye, my lyues delight
Murdered with cruell death?

The full stop after "delyght" is unnecessary, and the strangely repeated line perhaps shows us how the line should be punctuated — either with no punctuation at all or with nothing more than a light mark.

The dependence of Q2 upon Q1 is seen again in the use of parentheses.

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In both quartos they are most often used in terms of address, and the correlation between the use and non-use of parentheses with these terms of address is so extremely high that Q2's dependence upon Q1 is evident. In the sixty-seven terms of address, parentheses are used in both quartos to enclose the same twenty-five of these phrases; forty-two of these terms of address do not have parentheses. There is thus complete unanimity in the agreement between the two quartos in the use or non-use of parentheses. Only the most fortuitous and unbelievable set of circumstances could have brought about complete agreement if Q2 had not been set from Q1.

Moreover, in addition to these terms of address, certain other expressions, either appositive or interjectional, show almost such a high degree of correlation. There are twenty-one examples of such appositive and interjectional expressions; there are only two divergencies in the two quartos in their use or non-use of parentheses, but nineteen agreements.[5]

From the evidence of the unique white-space, the common errors, and the high correlation in the use of parentheses, we may be sure that Q2 was set from a corrected copy of Q1. The new apparel with which Day clothed the text did not quite cover the "dishonested" body beneath.[6]

notes

[1]

The unique copy of Q1 is at the Huntington Library (STC 18684); Q2 is reproduced in the Tudor Facsimile Texts series (1908). I have used this facsimile here, but I have checked it in any doubtful points with the original in the British Museum (C.34.a.6).

[2]

Sir Walter Greg pointed out in his Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration (I, 115) that "while Day's printing is much superior to Griffith's, there can be little doubt that [Q2] was set up from a corrected copy of [Q1]"; I trust that even that "little doubt" (should it exist) can here be resolved by the presentation of strictly bibliographical evidence.

[3]

The most accessible modern text of the play is that in Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas, ed. Joseph Quincy Adams (1924); references here are to that text.

[4]

A close study of the substantive variants shows that the corrector of Q2 was acutely conscious of extrametrical lines and corrected to bring them into the iambic pentameter scheme; in this line, as in a few others, he missed the extra syllable.

[5]

The two divergencies may require some conjecture. At V.ii.229 Q1 reads "(O Brittaine Land)", Q2 has only "O Brittaine"; if the corrector struck the word Land from Q1, he may have struck the parentheses at the same time. Two changes, one substantive, one accidental, occurring together may be attributed to the corrector. Second, at V.ii.272, the corrector may have together may be attributed to the corrector. realized that the Q1 expression "(O happie man)" is not a vocative at all but a truncated cry, usual at the end of such a drama as Gorboduc, "O happy [is the] man whom speedy death deprives of life." The important evidence is not in the divergencies but in the nineteen agreements.

[6]

I am grateful for the assistance of the Old Dominion Foundation in support of this and other projects during the summer of 1960.