University of Virginia Library

IV

Although Greg came to believe by 1955 that printer's copy for Errors could not have been a playbook, he continued to argue, following Chambers, that copy contained annotations by a book-keeper. In early formulations of this argument, both Greg and Chambers had relied upon slight evidence of (1) duplication and contradiction in three stage directions and (2) discrepancies in the spellings and forms of characters' names between the initial speech prefix in a scene and later prefixes. The first of the discrepancies in speech prefixes they cited is found at TLN 163, where the initial speech prefix for the Merchant is 'Mer.', although later in the scene he is called 'E. Mar.' The other two such anomalies affect Dromio of Siracusa's entrances at TLN 1073-74 and TLN 1135-36. In each case, his first speech, to be delivered immediately upon his entrance, is prefixed by 'Dro.', but the rest of his speeches in each scene are prefixed by 'S. Dro.' Greg reasoned that since, in the Folio, speech prefixes were twice omitted after entrances of single characters who spoke as soon as they came onstage (TLN 1183, 1641), then Shakespeare habitually

omitted speech prefixes immediately after entrances. The omissions were then, in Greg's opinion, repaired by a book-keeper whose hand can be traced through the discrepancies in forms and spellings. Greg may well have been right to argue that Shakespeare omitted some speech prefixes, but there is no need to invoke a book-keeper to account for the variant forms 'Mer.' and 'E. Mar.' or 'Dro.' and 'S. Dro.' The Mer. / E. Mar. variants seem to be merely compositorial. Compositor C set the entrance direction 'Enter Antipholis Erotes, a Marchant, and Dromio' near the bottom of his column H1va. He also set the prefix 'Mer.' immediately after the entrance; whether he copied the prefix or supplied it in its absence from copy we cannot know. Compositor D, however, was the one who set column H1vb, which contains the only two other speeches by this merchant, both prefixed 'E. Mar.' Since the variant forms were set into type by two different workmen, it would be superfluous to invoke two different hands in the copy as well—one the author's, the other the book-keeper's—merely to account for the variants. In the other two cases (Dro., S. Dro.), the discrepancies very probably did result from omission of speech prefixes after entrances, but the omissions could have been repaired by the compositors—there is no need to postulate a book-keeper's hand in the transmission of the play.[15]

By 1942 Greg had abandoned, without explanation, this half of his case for a book-keeper's hand in the copy for Errors and had come to rely solely upon the errors and contradictions in three stage directions. He suggested that the book-keeper added 'Exeunt omnes' to the stage direction at TLN 1898-99 to produce the contradiction: 'Exeunt omnes. Manet the two Dromio's and two Brothers'. However, such contradictory stage directions appear in plays identified by Greg as set from "foul papers" that could not be demonstrated to have passed through a book-keeper's hands. Foakes has cited parallels from 3 Henry VI ('Exeunt. | Manet Richard.' TLN 1646-47) and Coriolanus ('Exeunt | Manet the Guard and Menenius.' TLN 3329-30), and even closer parallels are to be found in the first quarto of Titus Andronicus, in which the stage direction 'Exeunt Omnes' (TLN 374) is contradicted by Titus' remaining on stage, and in the Folio Antony and Cleopatra with 'Exit omnes. | Manet Enobarbus, Agrippa, Mecenas' (TLN 880-881). The second stage direction cited by Greg as evidence of a book-keeper's annotations is split between the two columns of page H6v. The bottom of column H6va reads, 'Runne all out', a direction repeated in part in the second line of H6vb: 'Exeunt omnes, as fast as may be, frighted' (TLN 1445-47). Greg blamed the book-keeper for the alleged duplication, but Foakes offered an alternative explanation:

The first half of this apparently split stage direction appears in the direction line of the first column. Since no other stage direction in the Folio Comedies section is located in the direction line, it would appear that Compositor B was ready to take extraordinary measures to avoid setting a marginal stage direction at the top of a column. For this reason, he would not have completed the direction begun at the bottom of column H6va with the top line of column H6vb. That is, if Foakes (and Greg) are right in believing that Shakespeare wrote only a single stage direction, it is probable that Compositor B would have split it in two to avoid the typographical blemish of a marginal stage direction beginning a column. It would be a lucky hit if Foakes's explanation represented precisely what happened in Jaggard's shop in the early 1620's, but the unusual position occupied by this stage direction forbids an editor from using it to draw inferences about the nature of printer's copy.

My only reservation about Foakes's account is the possibility that Shakespeare himself could have written both directions as they now stand. 'Exeunt omnes, as fast as may be, frighted' closely resembles the following stage direction in the First Folio text of The Taming of the Shrew : 'Exit Biondello, Tranio and Pedant as fast as may be' (TLN 2490). The Shrew, like Errors, has long been thought to have been printed from Shakespeare's "foul papers" as annotated by a book-keeper, but since The Shrew direction is not a duplication, it is regarded as authorial in origin. No other text contains as close a parallel to 'Runne all out', which no one has doubted is Shakespeare's, although TLN 840 of the fragment of the first printing of 1 Henry IV might be mentioned: '. . . they all runne away . . . .' This fragment is believed to have been printed either from "foul papers" or from a transcript of them.

The last erroneous stage direction charged to the book-keeper by Greg is the redundant 'Enter Antipholus, and E. Dromio of Ephesus' (TLN 1665) already discussed. Since no other evidence in Errors suggests a book-keeper's annotation of printer's copy, this error, too, might better be charged to Compositor B, especially since the same compositor apparently had some difficulty with the only other entrance direction that he set for these two characters: 'Enter Antipholus Ephes. Dromio from the Courtizans' (TLN 995). In my view it is time that editors abandoned Greg's speculations about a book-keeper's annotations in the printer's copy for Errors—for lack of evidence.