I
The dating of Q4 has led one recent editor to conclude that it was the
source of "a number of passages" found in the Folio.[5] Indeed since Romeo and
Juliet
went through the press during the spring of 1623 (Hinman, I, 363-365; II,
513-529), the fact that Q4 had been printed by the end of the previous year
raises the possibility that it, rather than Q3, actually provided copy for the
Folio. The possibility is attractive because it would bring
Rom.
under Greg's general observation that "in most cases the particular edition
used as copy was what may be assumed to have been the latest available at
the time of preparation" (p. 159), and also would explain a number of
agreements between Q4 and F1 that are not readily attributable to
independent compositorial correction of Q3. In fact, however, another
explanation for the concurrences of Q4 and F1 must be sought, for the
evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that Q3 indeed served as Folio
copy.
The evidence consists not only of errors shared by Q3 and F1 as
against Q4, but also of those changes in F1 traceable directly to Q3's faults.
A few of these faults have a typographical origin. The most interesting is
in Juliet's speech at the end of IV.i, where the Folio has her take Friar
Lawrence's potion with the line 'Give me, give me, O tell me not ofcare'
(2416). Here Q2 and Q4-5 have the correct 'of feare', whereas Q3 has 'off
eare'. This reading is obviously due to the absence of spacing material in
the type that printed some copies, at least, of Q3, and either Compositor E
or some other agent has taken it to be an example of foul case and variant
spelling (of / off)[6] and
has made a plausible though wrong
"correction." A somewhat similar instance is found in Juliet's last speech:
Q2's 'This is thy sheath, there rust and let me dye' is corrupted by Q3 to
'Tis is', restored to 'This is' by Q4, but further altered to ''Tis in' by F1
(3035). Q3's omission of the -
h- may have been caused by
the
compositor's fiddling around with the line to accommodate a turn-up from
the long verse line that follows,
[7] but
at any rate this Q3 error has parallels in several other readings. In one case
Q2's 'turnes' becomes Q3's grammatically undesirable 'turne', and F1
corrects to 'turn'd' (and, incidentally, reconciles this by making the
'becomes' > 'became' change at 1956), while Q4 simply restores Q2's
form (1957). A few lines later (1961), the Q2-3 'puts up' (an error
presumably for 'puts upon') appears in F1 as the awkward but metrically
improved 'puttest up' and in Q4 as 'powts upon'. This pattern is repeated
in the Q2-3 omission at 2380, where Q4 inserts
'shroud' and F1 the less imaginative and repetitive 'grave', and in the
ambiguous abbreviation 'L.' at 951, which Q4 expands to 'Love' and F1
to 'Lord'. The same pattern of compound variation may be found in the
speech-prefix at 2087, where Q2-3's incorrect '
Ro.' becomes
'
Ju.' in Q4 but '
Juilet.' in F1; though
substantively
identical (even with Q3, which has '
Ju.' as a catchword), the
different forms suggest F1's independence of Q4, since Compositor E is
obviously reproducing (with a typical transposition) the form he found in
his copy. (More on this point later.) Finally, there are the well-known
cruces involving the assignment of speeches—the lines which close
II.ii
and open II.iii and the 'O Godigoden' speech in III.v (992-998, 999-1009,
2215-19). In all three cases the differences between Q4 and Q3 are
unmistakable, and in all three F1 has accepted the Q2-3 readings whereas
Q4 has altered them. The relatively numerous and persuasive examples of
compound variation combine with these significant differences and with the
more numerous instances of common error to show F1's derivation from
Q3 independently of Q4.
For two reasons this conclusion must stand despite the fact that the
Folio and Q4 agree against Q3 in having readings that are about as
numerous as those just cited, though not so significant.[8] Aside from the usual agreements
traceable
to obvious correction or fortuitous identical variation, Q4 and F1 have in
common some twenty identical readings that vary from their mutual copy,
Q3. Several of these involve the Folio alterations that Greg
cites—e.g.,
the substitution of 'Peter' for 'Will
Kempe' and of '
Boy' for '
Watch
boy',
and the righting of the redundant stage-directions in the last scene (2680,
3036, 3061, 3074+1). To these conspicuous changes may be added another
speech-prefix and several perceptive corrections of dialogue that are
common to F1 and Q4.
[9] Most of
these alterations represent intelligent attempts to remedy the defects of Q3
and would appear to be beyond the several compositors, particularly since
those in F1 were typeset by the otherwise deficient E. Yet it is their very
nature that makes them suspect as evidence of F1's dependence on Q4. As
McKerrow some time ago pointed out, "it is a general rule that the less
significant the readings varied are, from a literary point of view, the greater
is their weight as evidence of the genetic relationships of the texts in which
they occur."
[10] As attempts to
improve Q3, rather than common errors, the agreements of Q4 and F1 are
much too significant (in McKerrow's terms) to establish the derivation of
the 1623 Folio from the 1622 quarto, for the alternative explanation that
they originated independently with the respective editors is equally
plausible—or rather (as will emerge shortly) more plausible, in view
of
all the other changes introduced in F1 independently of Q4.
There is still another reason these twenty or so readings cannot
counterbalance the weightier evidence already discussed. Since the Folio
"corrections" traceable to Q3's typographical faults make it clear that an
example of this quarto served as copy in Jaggard's shop, any argument for
F1's dependence on Q4 would have to explain why he would have used this
"newly corrected, augmented, and amended" quarto only sporadically in
combination with Q3, when it would have been more convenient and more
sensible to use Q4 alone as copy. Under ordinary circumstances,
McKerrow's theory of dual copy—according to which "the master
printer
might have copies of the two preceding editions and it might be convenient
to give one to each of the compositors to work from" (p.
105)—would
admirably suit a book generally set up, at any given time, by two men
working more or less simultaneously. But the "intercalary" formes of
Rom. were typeset by only one workman at a time, almost
always
Compositor E. Moreover, such a practice as McKerrow envisages should
have produced some sort of bibliographical pattern in the Folio's readings;
but there is none discernible in its agreements with Q4, which are on the
whole isolated ones scattered throughout the play.
The only alternative to the theory of dual copy is to postulate
consultation
of Q4. By nature this theory is open-ended and difficult to test, since almost
any instance of lack of agreement between F1 and Q4 is easily justified by
an appeal to the concept of occasional use which is basic to the theory.
However, conflicting evidence of positive disagreement does arise
whenever—as in the instances first cited—the supposedly
dependent F1
deliberately changes a Q3 reading but in doing so ignores the acceptable
solution present in Q4. The only way to explain such conflicting evidence
is to make a second postulate—viz., that the Folio editor sometimes
supplied alterations independently of Q4 instead of consulting it. Yet each
time such an independent change occurs, the second postulate increasingly
gains strength, until it alone is sufficient to account for all the
non-compositorial alterations in F1, whether or not they appear in Q4. On
the premise that unity of reading necessarily implies unity of source, one
could just as well argue that Jaggard's shop
consulted the 1597 "bad quarto," behind which presumably lies a report of
some sort of recollected performance.
[11] As a matter of fact, the agreements
between these two texts as against Q3 are more diverse and substantial than
those between Q4 and F1, ranging as they do from several of the Folio
stage-directions and speech-prefixes that Greg cites—e.g., the
identical
entrances for '
Tybalt', '
Mother', and
'
Appothecarie' (1556, 2592, 2785)—through essential
concurrence in directions like '
Exit. Mercutio, Benvolio' at
1242 (Q1: '
Exeunt Benvolio, Mercutio'), to numerous
agreements in speech assignments and the wording of dialogue, all of which
differ from Q3's readings. Indeed, F1's use of Q1 might explain some,
though by no means all, of the agreements between F1 and Q4, since a few
editors believe that Q4 "habitually consulted" Q1.
[12] Still, the conflicting evidence of
deliberate
Folio
alterations made independently of Q1 is equally substantial as that for F1's
dependence on Q1, and even if one were to follow the consultation theory
to its illogical end and postulate the Folio's use of both Q4 and Q1, such
independent Folio alterations would remain to be explained. Here one may
well paraphrase Greg (p. 160): we may claim the right to prefer
probabilities to possibilities,
simpler hypotheses to complex ones, and to hope that people performed
their tasks in a more or less reasonable fashion. It goes without saying that
had Heminge and Condell or any other playhouse editor consulted a
document, it would have been a playhouse manuscript rather than another
print. Moreover, the notion that Jaggard would have used another quarto
to supplement Q3 raises a vexing question about his motivation for doing
so, when generally he seems to have relied on Shakespeare's company to
provide suitable copy. Such consultation of another quarto to supplement
the Q3 copy approved by Heminge and Condell is quite a different matter
from earlier printers' supposed use of bad quartos as an aid when setting
from foul-papers. And the Folio's agreements with Q4 and Q1 in its
attempts to improve Q3's text belong to an entirely different order of
evidence from, for instance, the typography of the Nurse's speeches which
presumably links Q1 and Q2
Rom. or the variable indention
of speech-prefixes on the second page of Q2
Hamlet, which
are
apparently traceable to the inner and outer formes of Q1. We must have
grounds more relative than such agreements in reading to establish the
Folio's dependence on either Q4 or Q1. There can be no reasonable doubt
that Q3 alone served as printed copy for Folio
Romeo and
Juliet. The conclusion must follow that the source of the alterations
introduced in F1 is to be sought in the Folio's own transmission process,
despite its interesting agreements with both Q4 and Q1.
