II
This example demonstrates a case in which the Oxford editors were
willing to adopt a reading from F while editing Q, but their treatment of
another miscorrection in outer G demonstrates an overly conservative
editorial decision in defense of Q's integrity. A Folio reading is rejected
and an uncorrected reading in Q is retained because Qa makes "local and
contextual sense" (TC 517). The uncorrected state of Q (Qa)
reads, ". . . thou art the thing it selfe, vnaccom-/odated man, is no more
but such a poore bare forked Animall / as thou art, off off you leadings,
come on bee true." (Qa: G2r-G2v). In the corrected state of the forme
(Qb), the last phrase reads, ". . . off off you lendings, come on" (Qb:
G2v). Folio Lear renders the passage in the following
manner:
"Thou art the thing it selfe; vnaccommo-/dated man, is no more but such
a poore, bare, forked A-/nimall as thou art. Off, off you Lendings: Come,
vn-/button heere." (F: rr3v; Riverside III.iv.106-109).
The proof-reader for Q corrected the impossible "leadings" in Qa to
"lendings," and F retains that revision. With respect to Qb's "come on"
G2v shows ample space at the end of the line for the compositors to insert
type and complete the passage. This fact combined with the absence of
terminal punctuation in Qb's reading suggests a partially completed
correction. The proof-reader recognized the original error, but the
correction was never carried out completely.
In this case there are at least two explanations for why the original
reading, which F undoubtedly preserves, was not restored during the
correction of Qa. First, the proof-reader may not have been able to read his
illegible copy and therefore failed to complete the correction. Or second,
the compositor, failing to carry out the proof-reader's instructions for any
number of
reasons, simply left the phrase dangling. In Blayney's discussion of this
press variant he observes: "It is possible that the proof-reader indicated
something a little closer to the presumed reading of the copy (which almost
certainly agreed in substance with 'unbutton,' although there is no evidence
of 'heere' in the uncorrected Q) but that the compositor somehow forgot to
insert it" (246). Usually an editor will remove errors and imperfections
such as the one in question for which there is evidence that either a
proof-reader or compositor is responsible. While the Oxford editors emend
"leadings" to "lendings" in their edition of Q, they preserve Qa's
uncorrected "come on bee true," arguing that "come on bee true" makes
sense and "leadings" does not. The editors acknowledge their temptation to
adopt F's reading, since Qb's dangling "come on" reveals an attempt to
correct Qa's "come on bee true" and that this "correction" was instead left
incomplete. They choose, however, not to
emend Qa with F's "come vnbutton heere," explaining,
(a) there is no indication that 'heere' stood in Q's copy; (b) if
'vnbutton' were the intended correction, then 'on' should also have been
deleted; (c) the uncorrected reading makes local and contextual sense. Even
if the press-corrector did consult the manuscript, and deciphered it more
successfully than the compositor had, we have no way of knowing what he
found there, and 'vnbutton heere' would hardly recommend itself as a
palaeographically plausible conjecture, if it did not stand in F. . . . Even
if we assume that Qa's 'bee true' was a simple misreading, possible
emendations are many—and the error may not have been entirely
palaeographical. (TC 517)
But the presence or absence of "heere" has no substantive bearing on the
sense or significance of F's reading—which is the action of "come
unbutton" and not the adverbial place of "heere"—and therefore does
not
support the decision to preserve Qa's "come on bee true." If one is setting
out to edit an edition of Q—or any edition of
King
Lear—and since there are three different renditions of the
passage
in question, the first two (Qa and Qb) suggesting error, miscorrection, or
an incomplete correction, it follows that one should consult F for additional
information and, in this case, to restore the original, correct reading to
Q.
Equally important, the editors' claim that "'vnbutton heere' would
hardly recommend itself to a palaeographically plausible conjecture, if it did
not stand in F," cannot be supported. Written in a secretary hand, "come
on bee true" and "come vnbutton" bear close similarity to one another. Paul
Hammond identifies this similarity and challenges the Oxford editors on
palaeographical grounds:
It is true that 'vnbutton heere' is not a palaeographically plausible
emendation for 'on bee true', but that is to misstate the case. Rather,
'vnbutton'—or, in a possible contemporary spelling,
'unbotone'—is a
plausible and easy conjecture for 'on bee true'. It supposes that the
compositor, struggling with a word which he could not recognize, read 'un'
as 'on' (under the influence of the preceding word 'come', quite
reasonable); read 'bo' as 'be' (which he then set as 'bee'); and read 'tone'
as 'true': all perfectly easy errors. The 'tone' / 'true' error may be the least
obvious, but at line 1954 Q reads 'true' where F has 'none', suggesting that
Okes' compositor B (who set both lines) was quite capable of reading 'one'
in his copy as 'rue' . . . . As for 'heere', it could have been omitted by Q
as redundant in the light of what it had made of the phrase, or it could have
been added in F. (103)
What is especially remarkable is that with this argument come the second
and third examples of a misreading by Okes' compositor B of "on" for
"ru": first with "contentious" and "crulentious," second with "tone" and
"true," and third, as Hammond points out, with "none" and "true."
Combined, these examples serve as significant bibliographical evidence for
approaching Q.
[10]
As with the previous example of "crulentious" and "contentious,"
then, evidence exists to suggest that Qa's "come on bee true" represents the
compositor's close but erroneous interpretation of the original reading,
"come vnbutton heere." Even if one argues that the textual authority of
King Lear is divided between two texts, Q and F, these two
press variants indicate that it is still necessary to assess each variant
textually, bibliographically, and palaeographically, and when these
investigations raise serious doubts concerning the authority of one reading,
it follows that we rely on the alternate text for assistance.
