I. Q5 and the Abdication Episode
In 1953 Richard E. Hasker (developing a conjecture by Alfred W.
Pollard) demonstrated that, contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy, the
printer's copy for most of the Folio text of
Richard II was
Q3, not
Q5.
[2] The possible influence of the
later
quarto, he urged, need be suspected in only two passages. The first of
these,
the abdication episode, or 'deposition scene', is relatively straightforward.
As
Hasker said: 'Since the "deposition scene" occurs in the section of the play
set from Q3, which lacks this passage, leaves could have been taken from
the
copy of Q5 which supplied the last leaves . . . or a transcript of the lines
could have been made when Q3 was compared with the manuscript
prompt-book' (p. 69). Although Hasker himself eventually favoured the
second of these options, the first has been endorsed by G. B. Evans and
Matthew Black.
[3]
Hasker did not attempt to analyse spelling evidence in order to
determine which of these two conclusions was the right one. Agreement of
F
with the spellings of Q5 would demonstrate nothing, since the manuscript
might well have had many similar spellings; but spelling differences
between
the two texts are potentially valuable as negative evidence. If the Folio
compositor never departs from his own spelling preferences
except
under the presumed influence of copy-spellings identical to those in Q5,
then
Q5—or something indistinguishable from it—was apparently
his copy;
on the other hand, if he repeatedly violates his own preferences
against the spelling present in Q5, then he was apparently
being
influenced by copy spellings different from those in Q5, and hence was
presumably setting the abdication episode (4.1.154-318; TLN 2074-2243)
from manuscript copy. The following is a list of spellings in the abdication
episode for which Folio Compositor A departs from
the spelling of Q5, against his own preferences—or his own
indifference—elsewhere.[4]
(The figures
in the third column indicate first how often he set the rejected alternatives
present in Q5, then secondly how often outside this passage Compositor A
set the form found here in F; 'j' indicates that the spelling occurs in a
crowded line, where it may have been affected by the need to justify.)
|
Q5
|
F
|
Compositor A
|
| graunt |
grant |
17; (1j) |
| proceed |
proceede |
10; 1 |
| bow |
bowe |
5; 0 |
| tutor |
tuture |
4; 0 |
| haile |
hayle |
10; 7 |
| tend |
'tend |
3; 0 |
| Mannors |
Manors |
1; 0 |
| Reuenewes |
Reuenues |
1; 1 |
| read (4) |
reade (4) |
9; 7(+1j) |
| Containing |
Contayning |
3; 1 |
| bate |
bait |
3; 0 |
| O |
Oh |
93(+22j); 66(+10j) |
| banckrout |
Bankrupt |
0; 0; banqu'rout 1 |
| satisfied (2) |
satisfy'd (2) |
2; 1 |
| indeed |
indeede |
23(+6j); 7(+5j) |
| Houshold |
House-hold |
unhyphenated 5; hyphenated 0 |
| need |
neede |
19(+1j); 2(+2j) |
The figures for Compositor A include all of his settings of the word in
question. For most of these—those occurring in all of the plays he
set from
manuscript—we do not know the spelling of the word in his copy.
For
Richard II and
Richard III, however, we can
check the
spelling in A's known copy, and see whether he altered or retained it. Such
qualitative evidence somewhat diminishes the value of five of these
anomalies. The only other example of 'proceede' occurs at
Richard
III 1819, where A's printed copy has 'proceed'. The participle
'Contayning' never appears elsewhere, but two of the three examples of the
verb spelled 'contain' occur elsewhere in
Richard II, and
simply
follow Q3; A's apparent preference for the 'contain' spelling may therefore
simply derive from the influence of copy. Elsewhere Compositor A
followed
copy 'O' seventeen times, but he did alter to 'Oh' at least three times
(
Richard II 1215, 1426;
Richard III 710);
the odds are, nevertheless, still against printed copy here. The only other
example of 'satisfy'd' occurs at
Richard III 1958, and departs
from
copy 'satisfied'. And although A is known to have retained 'indeed' 3 times
in
setting from printed copy, he also changed it to 'indeede' once elsewhere
(
Richard III 2434). However, none of the other fifteen
anomalies in
the table is affected by the available qualitative evidence; and of those
which
are affected, both 'Oh' and 'indeede' remain good evidence so long as it is
understood that all such spelling evidence depends on relative probabilities.
This strong spelling evidence against the use of printed copy is reinforced
by
two other details of the Folio accidentals. Although Compositor A has a
strong tendency to add emphasis capitals to his copy, on two occasions here
he fails to supply them for words capitalized in Q5 (weau'd-vp, TLN 2151;
follyes, TLN 2151).
As a test of the validity of this evidence, one can examine Compositor
A's departures from copy spellings in a passage of identical length which
he
is agreed to have set from Q3. This control was taken from the 82 lines
preceding the deposition scene (4.1.72-153; TLN 1991-2073), and the 90
lines after (4.1.319-5.1.71; TLN 2244-2333).[5] It will be most convenient to treat
these
separately. For the 82 lines preceding, Compositor A departed from Q3,
and
his own quantitative preferences, only 5 times:
|
Q3
|
F
|
Compositor A Elsewhere
|
|
Calice
|
Callis |
0; 0; Callice 5 |
| banisht |
banish'd |
4; 4 |
| Appellants |
Appealants |
0; 2 |
| breath (noun) |
breathe |
1; 22 |
| kin (2) |
Kinne (2) |
1; 4 |
Two of these are less significant than they appear. Though A set 'banisht'
four times elsewhere, on each occasion he simply reproduced the spelling
of
his Q3 copy (TLN 1201, 1221, 1224); in contrast, one of his other
'banish'd'
spellings departs from Q3 (1170). Qualitatively, A prefers the spelling
adopted here. Likewise, all three occurrences of 'Kinne' (two here, and one
elsewhere) occur in justified verse lines; all four uses of 'kin' in unjustified
lines. This leaves only 3 genuine anomalies in the passage preceding the
abdication. The last of these ('breathe') occurs 35 lines before the beginning
of the abdication episode; though it is conceivable that the use of
manuscript
copy began here (perhaps at the beginning of a manuscript page), it seems
more likely that 'breathe' is in fact a compositorial error, rather than an
anomalous spelling. Compositor A elsewhere consistently used 'breath' for
the noun (with only one exception) and 'breather' for the verb (with only
one
exception), and in setting 'Be iudg'd by subiect, and inferior breathe,'
(TLN
2048) he might easily have misinterpreted or mis-memorized the last word
as
a verb.
The second half of the control passage contains five apparent
anomalies:
| pernitious |
pernicious |
1; 3 |
| pitty |
pittie |
8(+1j); 14(+2j) |
| happy |
happie |
10; 21(+1j) |
| he |
hee |
28(+74j); 604(+82j) |
| worthy |
worthie |
29(+5j); 3(+1j) |
Two of these are in fact not anomalous at all. Though the quantitative
figures indicate a preference for 'happy', in the plays where A's copy is
known he twice alters 'happy' to 'happie' (
Richard II 1321,
1424), and
three times accepts copy 'happie' (
Richard III 676, 1972,
2393); he
also twice accepts copy 'happy' (
Richard II 1155, 2297), and
once
alters 'happie' to 'happy' (
Richard III 2392). This word is
obviously a
poor guide to Compositor A's copy. So is 'hee'. On five other occasions
A
set 'hee' in an unjustified line, where his copy is known; in all of them his
copy had 'he' (
Richard II 1139, 1456;
Richard
III 1754, 2023,
3233). As for 'pittie', A never elsewhere departed from copy 'pitty', but
he
did twice accept copy 'pittie' (
Richard III 2567, 2659). He
never
elsewhere encountered the word 'worthy' in printed copy. The most serious
anomaly is 'pernicious' at 2250: on the one other occasion where A
encountered it when setting from printed copy, he altered copy 'pernicious'
to 'pernitious' (the reverse of the change here). This may be another word
where, if we had more
evidence, we would see that A is simply inconsistent; but it is possible he
was still working from manuscript copy. The interpolated episode ends only
five lines before, and the annotator may have continued with manuscript
copy until the (unknown) end of a manuscript page. This assumption might
also explain the Folio's omission of a necessary '
Manent
Westmorland,
Carleil, Aumerle' after the '
Exeunt' at the end of the
deposition
scene (2245). Q3 contains this 'Manent' direction, clearly placed in the left
margin opposite 2246-48; although its omission from the Folio may be a
mere compositorial error, the omission would be easier to understand if A
were working from a manuscript, in which the direction was either missing,
or less conspicuously placed.
[6]
However,
direct use of Q3 had clearly resumed by 2251, three lines before the end of
this Folio page, where F follows Q3 in omitting 'My Lo:'. The resumption
of
printed copy thus cannot be
related to the casting off of copy for the Folio.
As there are no substantive errors common to Q5 and F in the
abdication
episode, the compositor's copy can only be determined on the basis of
agreements or disagreements in accidentals. For this purpose, we can take
as
significant all those departures from Q3 which violate A's preferences
elsewhere, as defined by quantitative and (where available) qualitative
evidence. The 20 such significant disagreements between Q5 and F in the
abdication episode (21 if 'pernicious' is included) contrast strikingly with
the
4 anomalies in a passage of similar length surrounding that episode (3 if
'pernicious' is excluded). This discrepancy is difficult to explain except on
the
assumption that manuscript copy was used
for the abdication episode. This in turn makes it easier to explain the
peculiarities at the end of the play.
[7]
