University of Virginia Library

"Wife" or "Wise"—The Tempest 1. 1786
by
Jeanne Addison Roberts

The vicissitudes of one textual reading in the history of the evolution of Shakespeare's text can sometimes reveal in a particularly vivid and interesting way the pressures, often conflicting, of literary judgments and bibliographical study. Such a history is especially enlightening in cases where it is possible to trace some sort of progress toward a correct conclusion. I believe we are now in a position to do this in the case of a much-debated passage in The Tempest.

As Ferdinand watches the masque produced by Prospero and Ariel in celebration of his promised marriage to Miranda, he says, according to most copies of the First Folio,

This reading was copied by the second, third, and fourth Folios. However, "wise" was emended by Nicholas Rowe in 1709 to "wife," presumably on literary grounds—to improve the sense—and without any textual evidence other than the fact of the easy confusion of "f" and long "s." His "wife" was the preferred reading throughout the eighteenth century, and Edmond Malone (1790) changed "Makes" to "Make" in order to effect subject-verb agreement.

The first evidence of an effort to restore the usual Folio reading came in 1842 from John Payne Collier, who re-emended to "wise," noting that "This is the reading of every old copy, from which modern editors have varied, without notice, by printing wife for 'wise,' and Make for 'Makes.' It needs no proof that 'So rare a wonder'd father, and a wise,' was the phraseology

of Shakespeare's time." However, in 1853, on the authority of his own forged Ms annotations in the "hand-corrected folio of 1632," Collier returned to the eighteenth-century precedent of "wife" and "Make," explaining the error of the Folios by saying "The f was mistaken by the compositor for the long s . . ." Other nineteenth-century editors vacillated similarly. Charles Knight printed "wife" in 1838-43 and "wise" in his second edition, 1842-44. In neither case did he explain. Alexander Dyce reversed the order of change, printing "wise" without explanation in 1858 but substituting "wife" in his 1864-67 edition in spite of his note that the Folio readings do not support the change. Samuel Weller Singer opted for "wife" in 1862, repeating it in 1856, though acknowledging, like Knight, that "all the old copies" read "wise."

Henry N. Hudson, James O. Halliwell, and Richard Grant White, in their editions of 1851-56, 1853-65, and 1857-66 respectively, were the first to insist consistently on "wise." Hudson had no note, but one supposes that all three editors were moved by a desire to restore the original text. White explained simply that "Malone and the corrector of Mr. Collier's folio of 1632 changed 'wise' to wife and 'makes' to make." In the face of editorial uncertainty about which reading to choose, Halliwell conceded that the two words were often confused, but he decided to retain the "original" reading. He was the first to attempt to back his choice with a sophisticated literary justification. Halliwell said of the passage, "The whole is a compliment to the powers of Prospero, so that I think the conjecture of wife for wise, first suggested by Rowe, and adopted by many editors, scarcely necessary."

Agreeing with Hudson, White, and Halliwell about the merits of "wise," but unwilling to drop Miranda from the sense of the passage, Howard Staunton, in his 1858-60 edition, rewrote the lines to read

Staunton introduced for the first time the implied suggestion that the word "wonder" might be linked here to Miranda's name. This suggestion was later repeated by other editors and readers who chose "wise" but were reluctant to exclude Miranda from the import of the speech. The list includes Richard L. Ashhurst, who spelled the implication out in detail, saying "I see no reason to change the Text, although I think Mr. Staunton's ingenious emendation . . . points us to the true rendering of the passage. The Wonder must refer I think to Miranda, emphatically the Wonder of the play . . . . Miranda must be the chief cause of Ferdinand's finding the Island a Paradise. 'So rare a wondered father,' meaning father of so rare a wonder, or father blest in the possession of a daughter who is so rare a wonder, though inverted and obscure, is hardly beyond the limits of poetic license. . . . This reading has at least the merit of adherence to the canon, keeping the text unchanged while it does not make Ferdinand guilty of omitting among his inducements to live forever on the Isle, the Goddess on whom these airs attend." Moved by the same impulse, John Dover Wilson (New Cambridge, 1921), G. L. Kittredge (1936), and Frank Kermode (New Arden, 1954) also mentioned in their editions that "wondred" is a possible reference to Miranda. To bolster his arguments Staunton pointed finally to the rhyme. Even though it occurs in the middle of a line in an unexpected position in a blank verse passage, he concluded "that the lines were intended to rhyme," citing similar rhymes (not similarly placed in mid-line) in The Passionate Pilgrim and Love's Labour's Lost.[2]

The literary argument was continued at some length in the Minutes of the Philadelphia Shakespeare Society for May 30th, 1865. Asa I. Fish pointed out quite rightly that the singular verb does not reliably support "wise" because "singular verbs and plural nominatives are too frequent in the F1 to found and determine a reading." He nonetheless concluded on the basis of the society's discussion that "either reading may stand . . . but the weight of the authority is in favour of 'wise.'" Richard Ashhurst at the same meeting, after elaborating on Miranda as the "wonder" ended with, "The reading of wife for "wise" . . . seems to me very tame indeed." In the 1892 Variorum, H. H. Furness recorded his own preference for "wise." John Dover Wilson added an imaginative fillip to his choice of the "wise" reading which emphasizes Prospero over Miranda, "The whole may be interpreted as a compliment to King James." The editors (William G. Clark, John Glover, and William Aldis Wright) of the various Cambridge editions (1863-66, 1867, and 1891-95) and the Globe (Clark and Wright, 1864) chose "wife" (see below), but Wright editing alone (1874) preferred "wise," saying, "Both readings of course yield an excellent sense, but it must be admitted that . . . wife seems to bring Ferdinand from his rapture back to earth again. He is lost in wonder at Prospero's magic power. It may be objected in this case Miranda is left out altogether, but the use of the word 'father' shows that Ferdinand regarded her as one with himself." Kittredge (1936), Peter Alexander (1951), Anne Righter (Anne Barton, New Penguin 1968) Irving Ribner (revision of Kittredge, 1966), Northrop Frye (New Pelican, 1970), and G. B. Evans (Riverside, 1974) all printed "wise" in their editions.

Perhaps the most curious of the literary discussions of the merits of the two readings is that of Morton Luce in the Arden edition of 1901. After printing "wise," he commented in his note, "If we have to strike a balance between the readings "wise" and "wife," it should be in favour of "wife," for the rhyme of Paradise with wise is a blemish, and it could hardly have been intentional." Miranda "surely would help to make the place a Paradise." Kermode's New Arden (1954) wavered similarly, printing "wise," but commenting, "We may think that, in this Adam-like situation, Ferdinand must have said wife; and the rhyme is unexpected. . . . In any case f:f is an easy misprint, and the true reading may be wife after all."

While these battles raged on the literary front (and it is noteworthy that all the arguments came from editors and readers who preferred "wise"—even though they supposed themselves firmly buttressed by the authority of the

Folio text), an important new bibliographical fact was revealed in the notes to the first Cambridge edition (1863-66). The text prints "wife," citing the authority of a variant reading of F1 as well as Rowe. The siglum for the alternative "wise" reads correctly, "F1 (var.), F2, F3, F4." The information that copies of the Folio differ was frequently repeated, but very little use was made of it, perhaps because copies of the Folio with the clear reading "wife" are rare and their location was not known.[3] The most careful recorded study of the problem is Fish's in 1865. Noting that "It appears that copies of the first folio here differ," he reported the negative results of his own research: "The copy of the first folio in the British Museum, the one at the Bridgewater House, and the eight copies used by Mr. Booth in collating his elegant reprint just finished all read 'wise,' if the photograph and the facsimile reprint may be trusted. The reprint of 1807 also reads 'wise;' so does Mr. Forrest's copy of the First Folio, the only one in this city; so does the copy in the Astor Library in New York. If the collation of the Camb. Edd. is to be relied on, the remaining folios all read 'wise.'" In spite of not finding the evidence, Fish accepted the idea that a press variant existed, concluding, "but which reading first appeared can never be known." Furness quoted Fish, but in his textual note gave "wise" as the reading of "Ff." He added his own commentary note: "In my copy of the First Folio the letter which is to make a wise wife or a wife wise is of such a doubtful shape that no one, I think, would be willing to decide which end o' th' beam should bow. Personally, seeing that I much prefer wise, I incline to believe that it is 'wise' in my copy." Evans' Riverside note on his "wise" reading said simply "some copies of F1 may read wife." The current state of knowledge is best summed up by Kermode, who says, "It has long been on record that some copies of F read wife, but no editor of the play seems to have examined such a copy, though other variant readings in the Folio text of the play are amply vouched for."

In The Printing and Proofreading of the First Folio (1963), Charlton Hinman recorded no press variant at this point of the text, nor indeed in the forme in which the passage occurs (B2, B5v). In my own collation of the forme in the Folger copies not collated by Hinman,[4] I discovered no sign of press variants. However, a check of all the Folger Shakespeare Library Folios[5] does reveal two clear examples of "wife," one in a copy not collated by Hinman, #73 (see fig. 1.), and one in a copy included in his collation, #6 (see fig. 2). Examination of these copies under high-intensity light makes it clear that the "f's" are not inked in by hand. Other "f's" with outlines less clear because of damage on the right side of the crossbar appear in #'s 2, 12, 18,

54, and 62. Among copies in which the letter looks like long "s," there are at least twelve cases of what appear to be fragments of a broken crossbar on the right side of the letter.

The possibility that this situation can be attributed to a stop-press correction is so slight that I think it can be ruled out altogether, not only because of the progressive deterioration of the letter, but also because no other variants appear in the forme. As for press-correction, if the original reading was "wife," the meaning was obvious and there would have been no reason to question it—certainly not to consult copy, for the line reads sensibly. If the original reading was "wise," the relative rarity of copies reading "wife" would force us to suppose that the correction was made toward the end of the press run, with presses stopped to alter only one word in the forme, and a word which was already acceptable—again an almost inconceivable procedure.

Much more acceptable is the theory which is supported by a close look at the evidence—that the letter began as an "f" and broke in the process of printing. Enlarged and superimposed photographs of various copies reveal general co-incidence of the outlines of the letter, except for the crossbar, and absolutely no disturbance in the setting of the line (cf. figs. 1 and 3). The only satisfactory conclusion is that the letter, originally an "f," was bent or broken in the process of printing, thus transforming the original "wife" to "wise" (see fig. 3). Some signs of the progress of this change may be seen in intermediate copies (see fig. 4). The rarity of the clear "wife" reading in extant Folios indicates that the letter broke early in the process of printing.

The odds against an accidental change in the shape of a letter creating another letter, and that change in turn creating a word still acceptable in the sense of the line, and adding a rhyme where none existed before are great, but the fact that all this could have been occasioned by one small physical change makes it a much more acceptable explanation than the alternative hypothesis of stop-press correction. In the presence of such accidents the literary imagination is almost helpless. Sound editorial principles

may be equally misleading. The history of textual editing of this passage of The Tempest shows that Rowe's simple obvious emendation, based, we may suppose, on the logical expectation that Miranda would have been as necessary as Prospero in Ferdinand's Paradise, turns out to have been accurate textual strategy.[6] Bibliographical "progress," in so far as it was based on partial knowledge, was actually regress; and the literary judgments of critics and editors are revealed as ingenious but useless flounderings. Although discouraging, the slow pace of progress is not enough to make us resolve, like Prospero, to drown our books; rather in this case we have new occasion to celebrate Henry Clay Folger's careful preservation of a large number of books in the collection that makes the solution to such a problem possible.

Notes