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The Authentic Text of Titus Andronicus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Joseph S. G. Bolton
Joseph S. G. Bolton*
Affiliation:
Skidmore College
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Extract

It was in 1905 that Mr. Evald Ljunggren, Librarian of Lund University, collated the newly discovered copy of the first quarto of Titus Andronicus with the quarto of 1600, and published his list of variant readings. Forty-seven of his readings involved more than mere variations in spelling and punctuation, and, of these, fifteen had been anticipated by the ingenuity of earlier scholars. One variant was a misprint, and thirty-one offered material for the consideration of the textual critic. But although these readings have been available to the scholarly world for a quarter of a century, editors have shown a marked hesitancy in introducing them into the traditional text of the play. The Neilson text, published the following year, incorporates only four, although twenty-two are listed in the notes. In the Tudor edition of 1913 Professor Elmer E. Stoll adopted as many as twenty-one, and in his notes included five others. But in the Yale Shakespeare issued in 1926, Mr. A. M. Witherspoon accepts none of the recovered variants, and in his notes leaves twenty-seven unmentioned. Basing his text almost entirely upon the First Folio, Mr. Witherspoon, I take it, assumes either that the editors of one or more of the editions following the first quarto had had access to the original Shakespearean manuscript or Shakespearean annotations, or else that Shakespeare himself did the revising.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 1929 , pp. 765 - 788
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 765 Shakespeare Jahrbuch, XLI, 211-5.

Note 2 in page 765 Those that I have numbered, in Table I, 4, 15, 25, 50.

Note 3 in page 765 Table I, Nos. 4, 5, 8, 12, 15, 20, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 38, 39, 43, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52.

Note 4 in page 765 The second scene of Act III, appearing for the first time in 1623, presents other problems, which are discussed later in this article.

Note 5 in page 766 I ray collating I have made use of the Praetorius facsimile of the Quarto of 1600, and of the copy of the Quarto of 1611 in the possession of the Elizabethan Club, of New Haven, Connecticut. For the use of this latter I wish to express my thanks to the members of the club and to the Librarian, Professor Andrew Keogh.

Note 6 in page 766 I am not concerned here with the history of the play previous to its first appearance in print.

Note 7 in page 766 (1) The title-page, (2) the first page of the text, containing the half-title at the top, “The most Lamen-/table Romaine Tragedie of/Titus Andronicus: As it was Plaide by/the Right Honourable the Earle/of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, / and Earle of Sussex their/Seruants,” and concluding with line 14, (3) I, i, 166-200, (4) I, i, 201-234 (thirty-five lines as printed in Q1), (5) I, i, 235-269, (6) II, iii, 200-234, and (7) the final page, probably K4 verso, containing the last 31 lines of the text, V, iii, 170-200, and obviously a left-hand page. Several of these photographs have been reproduced in Swedish periodicals. Nos. 1 and 7 appeared in The Illustrated London News, CXXVI, 185 (Feb. 11, 1905). The unique copy of the first quarto is in the possession of Mr. Henry Clay Folger, of New York City, and is not at present available for examination.

Note 8 in page 767 The final letter of “sors” and the initial letter of “seleeues” have been so nearly obliterated by attempted emendation as to render my reading of them highly uncertain. It is at least clear that the former is not a t and the latter is not an r.

Note 9 in page 768 Wright's English Dialect Dictionary gives “stalk” as a recognized Hertfordshire variant of “stack” or “shock” (of corn, etc.).

Note 10 in page 769 This passage is copied from one of Mr. Ljunggren's photographs.

Note 11 in page 766 The third quarto and First Folio variants are listed in two tables at the conclusion of this paper.

Note 12 in page 766 An indentation, but no speech-heading, appears in Q2 (I, i, 474), where the obviously correct All appears in Q3. The last two lines of a speech of Marcus Andronicus in Q2 (IV, i, 77) are transferred to Titus in Q3 so that the tribune may not be burdened with two consecutive speeches.

Note 13 in page 770 Of the 56 variations that are neither obvious errors nor simple corrections, seven alone rise to the distinction of a change in meaning: imperious > imperiall; seruile > idle; Nymph > Queene; aged eyes > noble eyes; catch > finde; mourning > mournefull; and the passage (III, i, 33-7) discussed in note 14. “Queene” in the third item was undoubtedly carried down from “Queene” in the line of the text immediately preceding.

Note 14 in page 770 That this transition, in all probability, did not involve an examination of either Q1 Or Q2 is evident (a) from the close following of the Q3 text by the Folio editors, even to the carrying over of occasional errors; (b) from the fortuitous nature of the very few instances in which F1 agrees with Q2 rather than Q3; and (c) from five groups of readings that show Q3 as intermediate step between two extremes:

I, i, 154, drugges > grudgges > grudges

IV, iv, 92, seede > feede > foode

II, iv, 41, A craftier Tereus, Cosen hast thou met Q2

A craftier Tereus hast thou met Q3

A craftier Tereus hast thou met withall F1

V, iii, 109, I am the turned forth Q2

and I am the turned forth Q3

And I am turned forth F1

III, i, 33-7, Why tis no matter man, if they did heare

They would not marke me, or if they did marke

They would not pitty me, yet pleade I must,

And bootlesse vnto them.

Therefore I tell my sorrowes to the stones, Q2

Why tis no matter man, if they did heare

They would not marke me, or if they did marke,

All bootlesse vnto them.

Therefore, I tell my sorrowes booties to the stones, Q3

Why 'tis no matter man, if they did heare

They would not marke me: oh if they did heare

They would not pitty me.

Therefore I tell my sorrowes booties to the stones, F1

This last item is the only indication that I have been able to discover of a possible connection between Q2 and F1. One can see that the direct cause of the later confusion was the dropping of a line in Q3, but it is not easy to determine whether the restoration of “They would not pitty me” in 1623 represents an examination of the Q2 text, or merely a happy guess on the part of the Folio editors. At least the omitted line was not restored by them.

Note 15 in page 771 The most striking of these minor modifications are the following: peoples Tribunes > Noble Tribunes; dririe > sudden; petty > pretty; iet > set; yellowing > yelping; scrowle > scowle; ply > play; and two items that call for further comment:

(a) III, i, 281-2 (Armes Q2Q3 > things F1)

And Lauinia thou shalt be imployde in these Armes,

Beare thou my hand sweet wench betweene thy teeth.

I agree with the Cambridge editors that “Armes” of 281 was probably a correction, inserted in the MS. by a reviser to replace “teeth” of 282, and that the first printer carelessly included it in the wrong line through his failure to notice that “teeth” had been crossed out. My own reconstruction of the two lines as they originally stood, however, is this:

And Lauinia thou shalt be imployde in this,

Beare thou my hand sweet wench betweene thy teeth.

(b) V, ii, 17-8 (that accord Q2Q3 > it action F1)

No not a word, how can I grace my talke,

Wanting a hand to giue that accord.

I accept Pope's emendation, “give it that accord,” as the probable reading of the MS.

Note 16 in page 772 I, i, 1, 63, 149, 398; V, i, 1, 164; V, iii, 15.

Note 17 in page 772 II, iii, 306; II, iv, 10; III, i, 16; V, ii, 166; V, iii, 204 (Exeunt omnes).

Note 18 in page 774 But if Mr. W. J. Lawrence is correct in supposing that music between the acts was a late innovation in the public theatres, this notation, too (Actus Secunda), may have originated with the prompter.

Note 19 in page 776 It is this poetic inferiority of the later versions—together with the absence of Shakespeare's name, as author or reviser, from a title-page of James Roberts' printing as late as the year 1600—that prevents me from considering Shakespeare himself the one who patched up this mutilated copy. The only bit of evidence that I can see in support of such a possibility is the somewhat Shakespearean quality of the new conclusion to the play, and even this can be explained in other ways—as due to Shakespearean imitation, or to late Elizabethan tragic convention.

Note 20 in page 776 For the spelling and punctuation of the earlier version of lines 160-4, I have been obliged to follow the quarto of 1600. The remaining lines of the earlier version are copied from Mr. Ljunggren's notes and photographs.

Note 21 in page 778 This follows the spelling of 1600. The 1594 version is given in note 7.

Note 22 in page 779 The spelling and punctuation of the earlier version of lines 90-2, 98-9, and 128-134, follow the quarto of 1600.

Note 23 in page 780 The spelling and punctuation of lines 31-4 and 38 follow the quarto of 1600.

Note 24 in page 781 It is possible, on the other hand, that the original reading of the manuscript may have been “that Andronicus,” and that the author's use of the 9-shaped mark of abbreviation to indicate a final -us misled the printer into concluding his word with a -y.

Note 25 in page 781 I, i, 98, ntanus, for manes; I, i, 242, Pathan* for Pantheon; I, i, 280, cuiqum for cuique; I, i, 316, Thebe for Phœbe; II, i, 135, Stigia for Styga; II, iii, 72, Cymerion for Cimmerian; II, iii, 231, Priamus* for Pyramus; II, iii, 236, Ocitus for Cocytus'; IV, i, 42, Metamorphosis for Metamorphoses; IV, iii, 44, Acaron for Acheron; IV, iii, 53, Apollonem for Apollinem; IV, iii, 56, Saturnine for Saturn; V, ii, 56, Epeons for Hyperion's. For many of these, it is true, Greek, rather than Latin, characters may have been used in the MS. The two readings marked by asterisks have been obtained from the photographs of the first quarto. In the case of the others, I have followed the second quarto, on the assumption that absence from Mr. Ljunggren's list of variants indicated similarity between the two editions.

Note 26 in page 782 To the items in this table should be added the following from Table I: 2, 14, 23, 26, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42.

Note 27 in page 785 And similarly altered in I, i, 478, 482.

Note 28 in page 785 And similarly altered in IV, ii, 24, 39, 44, 48.

Note 29 in page 785 And similarly altered in V, iii, 39, 41.

Note 30 in page 785 To the items in this table should be added Nos. 20, 29, and 33, from Table I, and all the entries in the third column of Table II.

Note 31 in page 786 “Yellowing” is not the error for “yelping” that earlier editors conceived it; N. E. D. gives it as an established, but archaic, word meaning “yelling,” formed by analogy with “bellowing.”

Note 32 in page 788 And similarly altered in II, i, 60, 75, 90, 95, 97; II, iii, 1, 52; V, iii, 11.

Note 33 in page 788 And similarly altered in IV, i, 7, 16, 42, 107, 112, 118; IV, ii, 4; V, iii, 172.

Note 34 in page 788 And similarly altered in V, iii, 53.