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IV. Authoritative F Readings
The discussion so far has established a useful starting point for identifying readings in F which are likely to be authoritative. The annotation, we suggest, had the authority of the promptbook and was in places detailed and careful; moreover, we can identify where those places are. This does not leave us in a position mechanically to determine the authority of individual readings. Textual and even literary judgements will remain at the forefront. So, for example, Q's furbish at 373 (1.3.77) is undoubtedly richer and more unusual than F's mundane furnish; Q should be followed, even though the line occurs within a corrected area. In other cases the pattern of correction, combined with the critical argument, presents a convincing case for the reading in F. But the argument from corrected areas will not prove sufficient in itself in the case of truly indifferent readings.
Whereas some scenes are almost entirely corrected and others scarcely corrected at all, 3.2 shows a fairly representative mixture. From 1359 to 1387 (ll. 1-27) and from 1416 to 1473 (ll. 61-115) it contains no evidence
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The relineation and added Offence at 1492-3 (ll. 133-134) have already been put forward as attributable not only to the annotator, not only to the promptbook, but to the hand of Shakespeare himself. A variant of similar status allows us to plunge into the indeterminate area and claim at least some of it for the annotator:
sit and waile theyr woes
F:
waile their present woes (l. 178; TLN 1538)
Great Lords, wise men ne'r sit and waile their losse,
(3 Henry VI, 5.4.1; TLN 2884)
There may be a similar instance within 3.2:
Crie woe, destruction, ruine, and decay,
F:
Cry Woe, Destruction, Ruine, Losse, Decay, (l. 102; TLN 1460)
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Death, Desolation, ruine, and Decay: (Richard III)
If substantiveness comes in degrees (the word perhaps misleadingly suggests that it does not), there are several other Q/F variants which could be called highly substantive. Some F readings will be rejected: hand for wound (l. 139; TLN 1498) is clearly a Folio compositorial error influenced by Hands in the previous line; at 1399 (l. 43) F describes how the sun 'darts his Lightning through eu'ry guiltie hole', where Q more meaningfully and metrically reads Light; Beares for beards (l. 112; TLN 1470) is, as suggested above, an annotator's folly, an easy manuscript misreading which produces a line of delightful nonsense ('White Beares haue arm'd their thin and hairelesse Scalps'). Variants such as power/friends (l. 35; TLN 1391) and partie/Faction (l. 203; TLN 1562) require more serious attention. At first sight they could be substitutions in either direction, though not of the commonest kind. But if compositorial substitution accounts for these variants, Q is more likely than F to have introduced them. Q's power and partie share in their neutral attitude. Folio friends is not only the more specific of its pair, but when set beside substance ('in substance and in . . .') it makes a meaningful distinction between material and human resources in a way that power does not. Furthermore, power occurs twice in previous lines (l. 27 and l. 28; TLN 1387 and 1388), whereas friends is nowhere in sight. Faction, too, is more precise and expressive than Q's partie; as may also have happened at Richard III 3447 (5.3.13), one explanation for the variant would be that manuscript factiō was misread partie, an error plausible in this direction but not in reverse.[45] With 'Is not the Kings name twenty/fourty thousand
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Only in the concentration of its attractive F variants is 3.2 unique. Examples of F giving a more specific or harder reading can be readily found elsewhere. Three F readings rejected by editors may be considered together.
Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, (5.1.44; TLN 2305)
Which then grew bitterly against our face, (1.4.7; TLN 582)
Shorten my dayes thou canst with sudden sorow, (1.3.227; TLN 520)
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Other variants have been attributed to the actors, but are much more likely to be authorial. In the line:
Two transpositions may be set side by side:
fourth of that name
F:
of that Name the Fourth (4.1.112; TLN 2032)
Q:
do these iusts & triumphs hold?
F:
Hold those Iusts and Triumphs? (5.2.52; TLN 2421)
The variant at 1538 (3.2. 178), in which Q echoes an earlier line, is not unique. Remarkably similar is:
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the word it selfe
Against the word
F:
the Faith it selfe
Against the Faith
(5.5.13-14; TLN 2680-81)
One may compare the laugh/mocke variant at 1759 (3.3.171) with partie/Faction discussed above. In both instances F has the more emotionally precise expression. F's Queene (5.1.78; TLN 2340) is doubly advantageous over Q's wife in that it avoids a repetition from five lines above and encompasses the connotations of pompe as well as the concept of wife:
She came adorned hither like sweet May;
Three substitutions involving units of time in fact vary in the certainty with which they can be identified as authorial alterations. At 162 (1.1.151) Q has:
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With raise/reare (4.1.145; TLN 2065) F arguably gives the less usual idiom; it is reassuring to find that the variant ocurs in a carefully annotated area of the text. A similar case is throwne/stricken (5.1.25; TLN 2286). This is not in a corrected area, but F has a more significant advantage in that it completes an irregular nine-syllable line in Q.[48] Another metrical emendation supplied by F is tell me/tell (5.3.1; TLN 2497), where Q's me anticipates my two words later (and is in any case an easy interpolation).
In the last two instances we move from F readings which possibly or probably derive from Shakespeare's revising hand to those which are much more likely to preserve an original text which Q has corrupted. The preceding discussion has established or at least suggested the validity of some F readings which editors customarily reject, but there is a persistent difficulty in distinguishing between what must be Shakespeare's second thoughts in F and corruption in Q. Fortunately we have some detailed knowledge of the work and habits of the compositor who set most of the text in Q1: Simmes's Compositor A. Alan Craven has written a series of articles analyzing the types of error this compositor was prone to introduce, and the implications of such habits for an editor.[49] Contrary to the usual assertion that Q gives an accurate and reliable text, Craven observes that Simmes's Compositor A was particularly likely to introduce error that involved a change in wording: in Q2 Richard II, for example, which he set in its entirety, he introduced 63 substitutions and 30 omissions, as against 25 literals errors. Yet when Craven comes to discuss probable compositorial error in Q1 he covers very different
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Assuming that the general tenor of the preceding critical comments proves acceptable, few or none of the variants discussed can be attributed to error on the part of the F compositors. But this assertion can be put on a more objective footing by considering the work of the F compositors elsewhere. Richard II was set by Compositors A and B, the latter taking the greater share of the work. Compositor B's efficiency in setting from printed copy has been examined by Paul Werstine, some of whose conclusions can be cited.[50] Although he sometimes substituted 'a more difficult word for the clear reading of his copy', Werstine's two examples—brawles/Broyles (Romeo and Juliet 91) and beastly/Beastlike (Titus Andronicus 2703)—are not remotely comparable with the variants in Richard II discussed above. Similarly, when Werstine attributes to Compositor B substitutions of 'words which are orthographically dissimilar to the words of his copy, but similar in meaning to the copy words' he is speaking in relative terms, and his examples again distance Compositor B's work from the distinctive substitutions in Richard II: smirched/smeered (Much Ado about Nothing 1796), curelesse/endlesse (Merchant of Venice 2051). These examples are drawn from a much wider body of work than his stints on Richard II. Transpositions prove to be Compositor B's rarest form of error, and interpolations almost as rare. Though he sometimes introduced metrical sophistications, he 'never added half-lines, adjectives, verbs, or expansions to his copy'. His omissions are 'too few to classify'. To summarize, the only discussed
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Of Compositor A's work set from minimally-annotated printed copy we know less, for the only passage so set outside Richard II itself is just over a single page in Richard III (1569-1735). His work there introduced the following changes: five minor rewordings of stage directions, five obviously necessary corrections of copy error, two metrically-required elisions, and one minor substitution or literal error (Nor/No at 1581). His propensity to correct on his own initiative is of some interest, but there are no hints here of the kind of substitutions and other alterations found in Richard II. His work setting from manuscript copy suggests that he was more accurate than Compositor B.[51] But 3.2 occurs in Compositor A's stint, with the result that he set more of the variants attributed to annotation than Compositor B, even though A set less than half the text.
This returns us to the pattern of annotation. Only 3 (12%) of the variants we have discussed lie outside the corrected areas. These provide the slight sprinkling of exceptions to the pattern that, on the basis of the other information, one would expect. As it has not been felt necessary to exclude such readings from consideration simply because they fall outside the corrected areas, and as the annotation of the surrounding area has not been put forward as a criterion for justifying most of the F readings, the new suggested readings from F lend further weight to the interpretation of the promptbook annotation. Or alternatively, the pattern of correction gives added authority to the advocated F readings.
The present discussion does not exhaust the number of F readings which should or might be adopted. The conclusions are twofold and mutually supporting. F is a rich source of readings that are both authoritative and radically different from Q. And even in Richard II, perhaps the most straightforward instance of an F text printed from annotated quarto copy, there are unmistakable indications that Shakespeare himself was responsible for some of these variants. We see clear evidence of the author in the process of making final adjustments to his play.
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