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Notes
The Shakespeare First Folio (1955), p. 353. Greg was writing in direct reference to J. Dover Wilson's early New Cambridge volume (1929), p. 103, which held that the corruption in the text "frequently suggests the carelessness of some hasty transcriber. Our notes will reveal a number of errors—verbal transpositions and the like—which seem easier to attribute to a copyist than to a compositor. . . . In any case, we can hardly doubt the existence of a hasty transcriber." This view is no longer held.
Ibid. In fact, the dashes seem to have nothing to do with any cuts or alterations, and the only broken line of consequence—Helena's 'Not my virginity yet:' (I.i [169])—is as assignable to an original defect or incomplete inscription in the manuscript as to a copyist (or compositor). The value of the evidence for the lack of 'Shakespearian spellings' is difficult to assess. It is appropriate to remark here, however, that analysis of the spelling by Compositors A and B of two inserts in Julius Caesar in a different hand from that of the regular manuscript has revealed little or nothing to indicate what was demonstrably a change in the copy except for different abbreviations in the speech-prefixes faithfully followed both by A and by B in the revised section of the duplicate announcement of Portia's death and in the first conference of Brutus and the conspirators, for which see Brents Stirling, "Julius Caesar in Revision," Shakespeare Quarterly, 13 (1962), 187-205. As for the errors in the text, Greg's point that these are more numerous than should be expected from compositors working on an autograph manuscript might be valid if the manuscript had been Shakespeare's fair copy (a doubtful assumption for any play); but if it were his 'foul papers,' then various errors could be expected owing to the difficulties of setting from a reworked draft manuscript.
Greg seems to be referring to J. Dover Wilson's early New Cambridge volume (1929), p. 103: "Here as there [Measure for Measure], for instance, the 'corruption frequently suggests the carelessness of some hasty transcriber' [footnote to p. 97 of the New Cambridge MM]. Our notes will reveal a number of errors—verbal transpositions and the like—which seem easier to attribute to a copyist than to a compositor. . . . In any case, we can hardly doubt the existence of a hasty transcriber." Wilson proved to be correct that the copy for Measure for Measure was a scribal transcript, since it was later established that the scribe Ralph Crane was responsible. But that Crane made any extra-hasty copy is not apparent; and it is quite definite that the parallels that Wilson saw between the printer's copy for the two plays are false, for Crane could have had nothing to do with All's Well. Greg's final point that some of the play's 'sententious fustian' might be attributed to a scribe is uncharacteristic of his usual sensible thinking and cannot be taken seriously.
The significance of these variable prefixes as evidence for foul-papers copy as against a transcript was first pointed out by R. B. McKerrow, "The Elizabethan Printer and Dramatic Manuscripts," R.E.S., 11 (1935), 459-465. His interpretation has never been seriously challenged.
William Shakespeare, 1 (1930), 450. Chambers continues that he suspects in the Gentleman astringer of V.i. that Shakespeare wrote 'Gentle<man> Usher' and that the book-keeper added over it the initial 'T' of an actor to create the misreading in the Folio. He also brings up the question (repeated by Greg from him) of the dashes at I.i (55) and I.iii (477), the two short lines at III.v (1650-51), and the abrupt change of subject at I.i (179) as possibly indicating cuts. If the dashes do indeed mark cuts (and there is no real evidence that they do), they could as readily be Shakespeare's as the book-keeper's. The short lines at 1650-51 are resolvable into regular pentameters. Only the break at 179 is evidence of possible disruption, but it could be authorial as well. In short, in these respects no need exists to conjecture interference with the text by a book-keeper.
New Arden, pp. xv-xvii. However, the present writer disagrees with Professor Hunter's assignments of error in these speech-prefixes, as will be illustrated below. The meaning of G. and of E. as identification devices is problematic. One might guess, however, that in Shakespeare's mind they could have referred to two Christian names for the characters (such as George and Edward), that is, if from the start Shakespeare had conceived of these two lords as brothers, something that we shall never know and perhaps a doubtful proposition to advance with any confidence.
All references are to the TLN (through-line-numbers) as marked in the Norton facsimile of the First Folio edited by C. J. K. Hinman (1968). The description of the printing is drawn from Hinman, The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare, 2 (1963), 457-470, 481-482. On the evidence then available, Dr. Hinman assigned sigs. V3 and V3v (pp. 233-234) to Compositor A, whereas I accept the attribution of these two pages to Compositor D made on more refined evidence by Trevor Howard-Hill, "The Compositors of Shakespeare's Folio Comedies," Studies in Bibliography, 26 (1973), 61-106.
The intention no doubt is to refer back to the scene of Bertram and the French Lords at II.i. There is no need to suppose that this direction was intended to cancel or to modify that calling them two Gentlemen at 1446.
The phrase the Maide called Diana may just possibly have some reference to a difficulty about her name while the play was being worked on. The rather pointless lines of IV.ii (2019-20) 'Ber. They told me that your name was Fontybell. | Dia. No my good Lord, Diana' that follow this direction may refer to some change of mind about Diana's name and even to some material cut or revised out of the manuscript as printed. The direction for III.v (1603-5) that first introduces Diana contains, in itself, a possible revisory problem: 'Enter old Widdow of Florence, her daughter, Violenta and Mariana, with other Citizens.' It is a toss-up whether Violenta is a ghost character (that she is not a mute is very likely shown by 1724 since the Matron is Mariana and the gentle Maide is presumably Diana) or whether the comma is misplaced and Diana was originally named Violenta.
At the end of II.iv when Bertram is bidding farewell to Helena, the Folio reads: 'Ber. I pray you stay not, but in hast to horse. | Hel. I shall not breake your bidding, good my Lord: | Where are my other men? Monsieur, farwell. Exit' (1364-66). Modern editors except for the New Arden follow Theobald ii in transposing the punctuation to read 'men, Monsieur?' and assigning the line as addressed by Bertram to Parolles, Bertram then continuing with 1367 which has his prefix Ber. However, in 1491 we learn that Bertram has traveled to Florence with Parolles and only one servant, and we have seen this servant at 2181-86. Thus it is not very likely that Bertram broke off his farewell to Helena in order to inquire of Parolles about 'my other men'. Indeed, the only defence of the emendation would be the two examples of an apparently misplaced insertion in IV.iii (2226, 2245) in which the beginning of one speech is appended to the end of the preceding. However, these come so close together as to seem to be special cases and they are not repeated elsewhere in the play so far as can be observed. Moreover, in both places the sense is quite obviously disrupted, something that is by no means true for Helena's speech once the difficulty of the 'other men' is solved by giving her an attendant to address, who should enter with her at 1325. The sequence of acquiescence to Bertram, the preparation for her departure, and a polite farewell to Parolles is so normal that emendation appears to be ill-advised, for it involves not only the transfer of the line to Bertram but also the radical alteration of its punctuation to conform to the changed assignment. In this respect, particularly, emendation requires more than the hypothesis that Compositor B mistook the position of a marginal addition. All that is needed to flesh out Helen's line is a mute attendant. The word 'other' seems to prevent a hypothesis that she could call the question off-stage.
This remark plus Helena's letter to the King, if delivered in secret, could lead to the fantasy that throughout V.iii the King knew all the facts, but the action says otherwise.
Given B's leaning toward maximally abbreviated forms of prefixes elsewhere, it could be argued that A's Cass. form was that of the copy, particularly since on one occasion B himself set a Cass. prefix. On the other hand, given the order of setting, this hypothesis requires B to have abbreviated to Cas. the Cass. of the manuscript on his very first setting of the prefix, with no guide in the directions as to the name of the character. (In All's Well the same sort of reduction may have occurred with B's setting of Ros. for possible copy Ross.) On the other hand, if Cas. were thought to be the copy-form, A's first Cass. could be conjecturally explained as the influence of the immediately preceding stage-direction in which Cassius heads the group entrance. It would then follow that having established the fuller form, A stuck to it for the rest of his stint on the same Folio page. If as I like to believe the revised manuscript copy was actually Shakespeare's autograph, the possibility exists that both Cas. and Cass. were present in the copy, in which case one or other compositor would then have established his own form. However, on the evidence of All's Well the odds may favor the fuller Cass. in the manuscript and B's abbreviation.
C's treatment of the standard Hell. prefix for Helena, which he might reduce to Hel. although admitting Hell., is another indication that, like B, he preferred short forms.
Actually, in this case the anomalous catchword of a speech-prefix may suggest that C had set it from copy, for it marks not a new speech by the Countess but a continuation, and hence it seems to reflect some disruption or abnormality in the copy repeated by the compositor more than it resembles an adopted speech-prefix altered from copy.
Compositor B made his first acquaintance with Lafeu when he set V5v, heading it with Ol. Lord. It seems simpler to conjecture that he mistook a copy prefix like Ol. L., Ol. La., or even Old Laf., since he had never seen the name Lafew, than that at this bibliographical juncture Shakespeare had written a variant prefix. Since in 994, the immediately preceding speech, the prefix is 4. Lord, B would be bound to interpret any L abbreviation as Lord.
The stage-direction in some plays could affect the future form of prefixes when a character's first speech followed immediately after his entrance and the name in the direction took the place of the prefix. In such a case if the compositor supplied the prefix missing in the copy, it would almost inevitably be in the form of the direction. However, such a speculation does not seem appropriate here, for the substitution of direction for prefix is ordinarily associated with single entrances where there could be no ambiguity, but in III.ii the Clown enters with the Countess.
The facts are as follows. In I.i on sig. V1v the Countess is his Mother in the opening direction (2) and Mo. in speech-prefixes (4 ff.). On V2v-3 in I.iii she is Countesse in the direction (328) and Coun. or Cou. in the prefixes (329 ff.) save for a stretch of revision in the copy where between 451 and 494 opening V3-3v she is Old Cou. before reverting to Cou. at 514. Next in II.ii on V4v she is Countesse in the direction (824) but Lady or La. in the prefixes (825 ff.) on V4v-5. In III.ii on X1 she is Countesse in the direction (1401), Count. in the prefixes that follow at 1402 and 1406, but then Lad. or La. on X1-1v. In III.iv after Countesse in the direction (1555) on X1v she is La. In IV.v on X5 the direction is old Lady (2481) and the prefixes La. (2489 ff.) on X5-5v. Finally, in V.iii she is again old Lady in the direction (2695) on X6 but Old La. in prefixes (2701 ff.) on X6-6v except for her only speech on sig. Y1, where she is given the tag Coun. (2919).
Unfortunately, when B took over with sheet V2.5 he set all the rest of the play. If the practice of other compositors could have been observed during the last three acts, we should know more about B's degree of normalization in this play.
This can scarcely be anything else but a manuscript form since it is uninfluenced by any adjacent stage-direction. That it is aberrant is clear because of the confusion it could create with Coun. or Cou. used earlier for the Countess.
That B might look over earlier set pages (if available) to make sure that he was following established prefix forms cannot be entertained in view of his change from the forms of the immediately preceding pages. He would have needed to go back to V2v to find Cou. and Ber., with Ros. in its complementary page V5. The evidence suggests that he followed copy without considering the possibility that the prefix for Ros. had been normalized to another form. Of course, it is likely that the sheets were stored and consultation would have been difficult. The case differs from that between the inner and outer formes of X1:6.
The New Arden edition has the only discussion to date of bibliographical reasons for certain of the changes. Although at the time Hinman's study was not in being and thus the editor, G. K. Hunter, could not be aware of the fact that a serious delay occurred between B's setting of quire X and pages Y1-1v, he shrewdly recognized that something in the bibliographical division of the text by quires would account for the changes in the prefixes for the Countess and Bertram between X and Y.
Any such hypothesis would require B on returning to set X6v after the delay to have consulted X6r in the opposite printed forme to align his speech-prefixes. This is not an impossible hypothesis: in contrast to the probable storage of sheets of the Folio after X by the time B returned to set Y, the partly printed sheet X1:6 in its inner forme would have been available. Even so, such a hypothesis requires two stages: first, the influence of the stage-direction on the first prefix and then the consultation that established the form of the second prefix even though copy may have differed in both instances.
These and other sections of the play suspected of being revisions or the breaking-off points of writing are analyzed in my "Shakespeare at Work: The Foul Papers of All's Well that Ends Well," forthcoming in 1980 in a festschrift honoring Professor Dame Helen Gardner's seventieth birthday to be published by the Oxford University Press, a study that also takes up the vexed question of the prefixes of the two French Lords G and E.
That it is a so-called 'mass entry' is unlikely, for evidence does not exist that this was a Shakespearean convention. It is possible but not perhaps probable that the false entrance marks another memorandum for later action.
In the New Arden edition, p. xii, fn. 3, G. K. Hunter assumes that Ol. Laf. on V5 and Ol. Lord on V5v derive in order from Ol. L. in copy. But such precision of reconstruction is not possible on the evidence, for the setting of V5v before V5 quite alters the picture. It is true that when B first encountered the prefix on V5v he could have misinterpreted Ol. L. and set Ol. Lord; but the same could have been true with the prefix Ol. Laf., which was probably that of the copy: at this point never having set a prefix for Lafeu he could have no notion of the character's name. Ol. Laf. in copy, therefore, would have meant nothing to him, and under the influence of 4. Lord in the prefix in the line above, the L would have suggested Lord regardless of the following letters. It is a small point, also, but a survey of the copy prefixes suggests that Shakespeare was more inclined to abbreviate the first element in a two-part prefix, like L. Laf. or L. G., or even Ol. Lady, than the second, although there are exceptions such as what may have been the copy Old Cou.
The authority and the proper identification of these two characters throughout the play are considered at length in my "Shakespeare at Work," for which see fn. 25 above.
This revision in the text is analyzed in my "Shakespeare at Work," for which see the reference in fn. 25 above. It should be remarked that in this case because of Helena's intervening entrance the fact of the repeated prefix is not the major evidence for a revision but instead the change in the form of the prefix associated with its repetition and continued throughout the addition, only to revert to the initial form when the compositor carried on with the original text. Indeed, simple repetition of a tag like this is occasionally found in dramatic texts when a character continues a speech after the entrance of another person, especially if the continuation is thereupon addressed to the newly entered character. Moreover, because of the occasional convention that the name of an entrance direction could stand for the prefix when the entering character immediately speaks, it may have been that a repetition of the tag for the original speaker was useful to remove any ambiguity about the speaker of such lines after the interruption of an entrance. Thus in I.iii the alteration in form at 451 for a sequence of Old Cou. prefixes intervening in a sequence of Cou. forms that later resume is the essential evidence for addition.
No reason exists to suppose that C, completing V4v, would obey any mark in the manuscript for cast-off copy so rigidly as to end his page in mid-speech (even though at the end of a sentence) and to set as catchword a repeated speech-prefix for what would be the continuation over-page. Indeed, since copy from V4 was being set forward in the quire, there is a possibility that it had not been cast off at all until V6v was reached and quire X had to be worked on. That C could have inserted Lady. as prefix at the end of the page as a note to the next compositor of the form which the prefix should take is mere fantasy, especially since it would necessarily involve the hypothesis that though C had set Lady as his prefixes on V4v, the manuscript had read Cou.
Editors have taken it that the sequence of speech-prefixes for the Clown at 1243 and 1245 signifies that some reply of Parolles has dropped out. That a gap of some sort existed seems clear, but slight desperation may be evident in the New Arden's alternative explanation, "it is possible to keep F text assuming only that the clown pauses and, presuming Parolles' answer, replies to that." As remarked, two such prefixes are not unknown in some plays if a stage-direction intervenes between the parts of a single speech and the person entering is thereupon addressed; but this is not the situation in All's Well: no direction occurs here nor is it likely that one has been lost. (Sisson's expedient, followed by Evans, of having Parolles shake his head between the speeches is not satisfactory and would not call for a direction, anyway. Moreover, the customary requirement of a change of address is wanting.) Editors endeavoring to fill the gap with some supposed answer from Parolles have not offered any suggestion that carries conviction as the generator of the Clown's 'The search sir was profitable'. The New Cambridge conjecture 'Parolles. In myself.' is about as much as can be done, but carries no conviction. It is moot, then, whether a line or so by Parolles has dropped out or where there is another explanation for the anomaly. Since the second speech hinges on the first, it is possible to guess that the second was a marginal addition in the manuscript, although one must confess that the duplicated speech-prefix could be more easily explained if the second speech had been the original and the first, with its prefix, had been inserted. Nevertheless, if the Countess' duplicated prefix in 861-863 does indeed result from an addition, then the hypothesis can be advanced here as well. The continuity of the two speeches read as one is not ideal, but sufficient.
In Julius Caesar, as remarked, the scribe carefully thought out the problem of the speech-prefixes and to avoid ambiguity he settled on Cassi. for Cassius and Cask. for Casca and thus prevented possible confusion with the other and with Cœs. for Caesar.
The various eccentric spellings that have been labeled 'Shakespearean' are notably absent from All's Well; but the smoothing here is not surprising when one considers that compositors in 1622-23 were dealing with an old-fashioned manuscript written two decades earlier. The Folio All's Well is not the Second Quarto of Hamlet.
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