University of Virginia Library

Some Borrowings in Tristram Shandy: The Textual Problem
by
Melvyn New and Norman Fry

One of the most complex problems facing an editor of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy concerns Sterne's frequent interpolation of borrowed materials, often in French or Latin, into his text. To be sure, any borrowing raises the problem of its source, that is, of annotating it in an explanatory footnote. In this essay, however, we shall concern ourselves with the more specific textual problems raised by several interpolated passages in Tristram, passages where the establishment of a definitive text depends upon determining the relationship between Sterne's source and the copy-text. When a passage is borrowed, the editorial process is complicated by an additional text which may, depending upon the closeness with which the author attempted to duplicate it, be as important as the copy-text itself. The problem of determining which questionable readings in a copy-text are authorial, which compositorial, is rendered all the more difficult when one adds to authorial intent the process of copying as well as composing—and more difficult still when the copying or composing is

of a passage in a language foreign to the author and compositor. We shall discuss six such passages in Tristram Shandy, ranging in size from single sentences to Ernulphus' curse, which, in Latin and English, runs for nineteen pages in the first edition.

We may best begin with two brief sentences, the source of both probably being Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. In Volume VI, Chapter 33, Sterne writes: 'Quanto id diligentias in liberis procreandis cavendum, sayeth Cardan'.[1] James A. Work was unable to find the sentence in the works of Cardan and suggests in his edition of Tristram that Sterne "may have adapted it from the Anatomy of Melancholy, 1.2.1.6."[2] It is a good suggestion, we believe, though a more careful reading of Burton would have led Work to the actual author of the passage, Jean Fernel (Fernelius), whose work is alternately cited in this section with that of Cardan.[3] The fact is, Sterne scanned the paragraph too quickly (unless, of course, he was being intentionally deceptive) and attached Cardan's name to Fernel's sentence, as quoted verbatim by Burton: 'quanto id diligentiùs in procreandis liberis observandum?'[4] Sterne's 'diligentias' for Burton's 'diligentiùs' is the first of many such variants we shall encounter in his copying of foreign passages; the number of them suggests several generalizations: that Sterne was a rapid and inaccurate copier; that his hand was not easy to read, especially his vowels; that the various compositors involved were unfamiliar with French and Latin; that Sterne was not a careful proofreader. All these generalizations are, to some degree, correct, and in most instances an emendation to the copy-text is justified. But Sterne also altered this quotation in a more dramatic fashion, 'liberis procreandis cavendum' for 'procreandis liberis observandum'. The alteration in meaning is so subtle (perhaps the difference in connotation between "How much more care then should we 'exercise' in begetting our children" for ". . . should we observe . . .") that it argues Sterne's care in writing as well as his knowledge of Latin. Quite obviously, we must preserve the illuminating original in a footnote.[5]

In Volume VIII, Chapter 24, Sterne again quotes Burton, this time verbatim, except for one word: Sterne has 'incidesset' for Burton's correct 'incidisset'.[6] As with 'diligentias' the editor would be justified, we believe,

in emending the copy-text, this being the sort of error which Sterne's hand may well have caused.

A longer passage in Latin is taken from the entry under Luther in Bayle's Dictionary, and appears in the fourth volume of Tristram as a footnote.[7] From a rather glaring error we can identify the edition of Bayle used by Sterne; only the five-volume edition of 1734-38 has the following reading: 'Ex horoscopi directione ad Martis coitum religiosissimus obiit', where obviously the 'irreligiosissimus' of earlier editions is called for, unless we are willing to suppose that the Catholic astrologer believed Luther died "wholly religious."[8] Sterne follows his source faithfully, though whether he caught the humor of the error or was simply copying in haste may never be determined. The source is valuable in other ways as well. Sterne omitted the numeral '5' in his note, though he refers to the five planets in his text; Bayle specifies '5. Planetarum'. Bayle has 'effecit', where Sterne has 'efficit', an unnecessary change in tense, and one where again an emendation seems called for. Similarly, Sterne's 'seclestissima' for Bayle's 'scelestissima', 'Magera' for 'Megera', and 'pereniter' for 'perenniter' all suggest instances where Sterne's hand or carelessness rather than his Latin is at fault. His alteration of 'Scorpii' to 'Scorpio', on the other hand, while not as precise, does have the advantage of repeating the English of the text proper and probably can be preserved;[9] and his 'infernos' for Bayle's 'Inferos' marks a particular habit in Sterne of bringing foreign words into closer agreement with English cognates.

Just preceding this footnote in the fourth volume of Tristram is another footnote which Work (p. 260) labels "a burlesque of pedantic authority-citing." While clear in its overall thrust, the note presents an interesting textual problem, of a sort different from those just commented upon. For example, in both the first and second editions, it reads 'Bar e Jas', which in the 1780 Works, and most modern editions, has been altered to 'Barne Jas'. However, in Henry Swinburne's A Briefe Treatise of Testaments and Last Willes, which Sterne cites several times later in Volume IV, we find

the following phrasing in one of the many ponderous notes to this learned treatise: While the learned formulas and citations may well occur in numerous other legal tracts, the similarity to Sterne's nonsense note, especially the specific numerals of the citation, is striking: What is suggested by this similarity is that Sterne culled the margins of Swinburne, or a similar legal treatise, in order to put together his note. If this conjecture is accepted, 'Bar e Jas' may well have been a compositorial error for 'Bar & Jas', and a small crux is solved.[11] In addition, Sterne's 'Logistæ' is quite probably an error for 'legistæ'.

The opening sentence of Sterne's note, 'Nonnulli ex nostratibus eadem loquendi formulâ utun', also finds something of a parallel in Swinburne: 'Cæterùm quod nonnulli ex nostratibus eandem conclusionem extendunt, ut locum habeat vel ignorante executore, alios esse creditores . . .' (Part 3, xvi, p. 110v). And Sterne's phrases, 'Quibus add. Rebuff in L. obvenire de Signif. Nom. ff. fol.' and 'de protib. aliena feud. per federa', are close to Swinburne's 'cui adde Rebuff. in L. obvenire, de verb. signif. ff. fol.' and 'de prohib. alienac. feud. per fæder',[12] though again we are dealing with formulas that might exist in other legal works as well. Since the note is basically nonsense, it is difficult if not impossible for the editor to emend it, especially if reasonableness is the only available criterion. For example, is Sterne's 'protib.' merely an error for the far more likely 'prohib.'? We cannot say for certain without a sensible context to validate the emendation. Should 'Argentotarens.' be emended to 'Argentoratens.', that is, the "Strasburgians," as Sterne had written it in "Slawkenbergius's Tale," or is the "error" simply more nonsense? That the note is bawdy is without doubt: 'J. Scrudr.',[13] 'J. Tubal', 'Von Jacobum Koinshoven', and 'Joha. Luxius'

are all suggestive; but what or who is meant by 'N. Bardy' or Tichmak.' or a phrase like 'de contrahend. empt. &c.'? As is so often the case with Sterne, it is difficult to know when to stop, and in this particular instance, especially difficult, since Sterne seems to have constructed his note by putting together several formulas and phrases which have no meaning in context. If nothing else, the fact that the compositor had to work solely from the hand of Sterne, without being able to rely at all on meaning, would greatly increase the opportunity for error.

The borrowings from Adrien Baillet's Des Enfans célèbres, also in Volume IV, with an additional passage in Volume VI, do not offer very great difficulties, though they again illustrate the problems of dealing with borrowed passages in a foreign language.[14] Most important, perhaps, is the fact that Sterne's accenting of French is uniquely his own, and is certainly not guided by his source. The best course here, and for Sterne's accenting in general, we believe, is to follow the copy-text, except where a wrong accent affects the meaning.[15] In spelling, however, Sterne's copying or the compositor would seem to be responsible for 'Nourisse', 'fil', and 'reuissit' (IV, 99) where Baillet has "Nourrisse', 'fils', and 'réussit' (Baillet, VI, 136), and emendations seem justified. His 'differents' for 'différens', on the other hand, is again indicative of his practice involving cognates and probably ought not be emended. It is interesting to note in Sterne's use of Baillet how closely he follows his source, and yet how his eye is constantly searching for economy. Hence, where Baillet writes '. . . & son Pere pour faire voir un essai de son expérience dans son nouvel établissement à Rapallo . . .' Sterne silently drops everything after 'expérience'; and when Baillet writes '. . . tous fruits d'une longue lecture & d'une érudition acquise par des travaux extraordinaires . . .' Sterne omits everything after 'lecture'.

The final problem to be discussed is Sterne's use, in Latin and English, of the Bishop of Rochester's "Excommunication" in Volume III. In 1960, William A. Jackson corrected Wilbur Cross's statement that Sterne took his Latin text from the Harleian Miscellany by pointing out that the Latin was not included in that work.[16] Instead, Jackson identified the source as Thomas Hearne's edition of the Textus Roffensis (Oxford,

1720).[17] Jackson also identified the source of Sterne's English translation as the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1745 (p. 490), and his argument for it, rather than the Harleian Miscellany, is quite sound. Enough variants occur, however, in both Sterne's Latin and English versions to raise some question as to whether Sterne did not have another source, based on, or the basis of, Hearne and the Gentleman's Magazine; if he did, no likely candidate has yet been discovered.[18]

Hearne's Latin text suggests that several emendations should be made to Sterne's; for example, 'et a liminibus sanctæ Dei ecclesiæ sequestramus et æternis suppliciis excruciandus . . .' should be altered to 'ut æternis, etc.' as in Hearne, and as in the translation, 'that he may be tormented . . . .'[19] It is interesting to note in this same passage that Sterne's 'excruciandus' is his emendation of Hearne's 'cruciandus'; it perhaps indicates Sterne's habit with cognates, that is, he has "excruciating" in his mind.

Most of the variants between Hearne and Sterne are in spelling, and it is often difficult to assign responsibility for the change. That Hearne's 'genitricis' and 'genitrix' become in Sterne 'genetricis' (p. 36) and 'genetrix' (p. 42) may indicate a conscious alteration, as may Sterne's 'quatuor' (p. 44) for 'quattuor' and his 'compagibus' (p. 50) for 'compaginibus';[20] but Sterne's 'patriarchum' (p. 38) for 'patriarcharum', 'respuerit' (p. 40) for 'resipuerit', 'guttere' (p. 48) for 'gutture', 'harnis' (p. 48) for 'harmis', and 'manubus' (p. 48) for 'manibus' may all be the result of careless transcription or compositorial error, and should probably be emended.[21]

On the other hand, Sterne would seem to have copied faithfully enough to have transcribed two Hearne "errors," one of which, 'potestatuum' (p. 38), is footnoted 'sic'.[22] Most interesting is the phrase 'in dentibus mordacibus, in labris sive molibus', which Sterne copied almost exactly, inserting a comma after 'dentibus' (p. 48). The phrase, however, does not seem to make sense, and Sterne's translation, 'in his foreteeth and grinders' (p. 49), is perhaps best served by Work's silent emendation of the text, 'in dentibus, mordacibus sive molaribus'.[23]

Sterne also did a small amount of editing on Hearne's text, changing 'N[omen]' to the more usual 'N.N.' and 'Abiron' to 'Abiram', the spelling of his own translation. The phrase 'omnisque militia cœlestis exercitus' he shortens by dropping 'exercitus', at the same time changing the GM's translation 'all the heavenly host' to 'all the heavenly armies', which enables him to interrupt hobby-horsically: 'Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,—but nothing to this' (p. 43). More subtle is an alteration near the end of the curse, where the Latin 'in pedibus, in articulis, & in unguibus' is rendered by Sterne 'in pedibus, et in unguibus' and is translated '[in his] feet, and toe-nails' (p. 50-51), rather than as in the GM, 'in the feet, in the joints, and in the nails'.[24] Then, for the very

next sentence, 'Maledictus sit in totis compagibus membrorum . . .', where the GM translates 'May he or they be cursed in all their joints . . .', Sterne has 'May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of his members.'[25] If Sterne did indeed use Hearne and the Gentleman's Magazine, he used them with the care and freedom of an artist, and in this instance avoided both a clumsy redundancy in the translation and a non-sequential phrase in the Latin.

Sterne's use of the English version in the Gentleman's Magazine reveals his care in handling sources in other ways as well. His introduction of the word 'armies' to key the "hobby-horse" has already been mentioned. Another alteration is the addition of 'stables' and 'garden' (p. 47), where the GM has only 'in their house or in their field' (the Latin reads 'sive in domo, sive in agro'); the addition makes the curse particularly applicable to Obadiah. Again, Sterne uses 'vertex' rather than the GM's 'top of his head', vertex being a hobby-horsical word for Walter: 'that is a sad curse, quoth my father' (p. 49); and 'purtenance' for 'interior parts', another Shandean substitution. One further addition is a puzzle: Sterne begins a paragraph, 'May he be damn'd in his mouth' (p. 49), though there is no Latin equivalent for this—nor is it in the GM.

At times, by following the GM translation, Sterne seems to have been led into error. For example, the GM fails to translate 'in oculis' and Sterne follows suit, even though a few pages after the curse he specifically says that every curse, from 'By the splendour of God' down to 'Damn your eyes' can be found in Ernulphus (p. 64). Another error caused by the GM is Sterne's reading of '& sanctorum innocentum, qui in conspectu Agni soli digni inventi sunt canticum cantare novum, et sanctorum martyrum, et sanctorum confessorum' (pp. 38, 40) as 'and of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing the new song of the holy martyrs and holy confessors' (pp. 39, 41). The GM caused this confusion by omitting 'and' after 'song', though it does have a comma between 'song' and 'of' which Sterne overlooked; the martyrs and confessors are, of course, in series with the innocents, and not the subject of the 'new song'.

A rather strange error is Sterne's translation of 'sanctus Johannes præcursor et Baptista Christi' (p. 44) as 'May St. John the præ-cursor, and St. John the Baptist' (p. 45), in spite of the GM's 'May St. John, the chief fore-runner and baptist of christ'. One would like to know what Sterne was thinking about in making this change—perhaps a sly thrust at the number of Catholic saints, which consistently seems to have amused him. Similarly, we do not understand why he fails to translate 'Maledicat illum patriarcharum et prophetarum laudabilis numerus' (p. 44), the only sentence he omits;[26] or why he translates 'scientiam viarum tuarum nolumus' as 'none

of thy ways' (p. 41) instead of following the GM's 'not to know thy ways'; or 'non sit in eo sanitas' as 'may there be no soundness in him' (p. 51) for the GM's 'may there not be any soundness in him'. To see Sterne making these minute changes does suggest, once again, the very conscious artistry behind the seemingly undesigned prose of Tristram Shandy.

These several illustrations of Sterne's use of borrowed materials, particularly those in foreign languages, suggest the editorial problem faced by the editor of Tristram Shandy. In the absence of a manuscript, any copy-text must be carefully scrutinized for possible compositorial errors; and in dealing with a passage in a language quite probably unfamiliar to the compositor, the possibility of errors is greatly increased. We have evidence enough that Sterne saw his work through the press,[27] but he was hardly a meticulous proofreader, much less a careful copier. Moreover, his hand-writing is not exceptionally clear. The editor of Tristram Shandy, then, is well advised to use Sterne's sources as a guide in preparing his text, making every effort to distinguish between variants introduced by the copying or composing processes and variants introduced by authorial intent. Indeed, it is even possible that at times the author's purpose can best be served by using the source as copy-text, especially if copying or composing errors are numerous, though the intention was clearly a verbatim transcription; emendations to this text would then highlight the author's artistic reworking of his source.[28] But even if we do not accept this perhaps extreme procedure, it should be evident that the sources of borrowed passages can play a key role in the editorial process, and must often be accounted for in the establishment of a definitive text.

Notes