Hymenaei was first published in quarto in 1606, printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas Thorpe. The collation of the quarto is: A1 blank; A2 title page; A2v blank; A3-F2v the text of the masque. All surviving copies of the quarto have been collated:
1. British Library , C.34.d.3
2. British Library , C.40.g.13
3. Glasgow University Library Hunterian, Co.3.27
4. John Rylands Library, Manchester, 22206
5. Bodleian Library, Oxford, 4o T 37(4) Art.
6. Victoria and Albert Museum, Dyce 5351 (call no. D.25.A.83)
7. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14774
8. Harvard University Library, Houghton STC 14774
9. Huntington Library, San Marino, 62056
10. University of California, Los Angeles, PR2624 .H91*
11. University of Texas, Austin, Pforz 549
During the course of printing stop-press corrections were introduced on the inner formes of sigs. C and D, with the latter being twice corrected, as set out below:
|
C4 |
State 1 | State 2 |
| 9 | firstPlaces | first ^Places |
| 10 | thisSong ... time,^vrg’d | this^Song ... time,vrg’d |
State 1:1, 3, 6, 8
State 2: 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11
| D1 v | State 1 | State 2 | State 3 |
| 1 | Shrke | Shrinke | ~ |
| 5 | strif^e | ~ | strife |
| D2 | |||
| note b | Voc^Rapi. | Voc.^^Rapi. | ~ |
| note c/d | alterius^vltrius | ~ | alterius^^vtrius |
State 1: 6, 8
State 2: 1, 2, 3, 5, 11
State 3: 4, 7, 9, 10
Of these corrections only the last, of the Latin in note c/d on D2, is of any significance, since it must have been introduced by someone with knowledge of the language, perhaps even Jonson himself, though the proofing was by no means exhaustive, with some four further obvious errors which were only later corrected in the folio printing. Generally, however, the quarto is carefully printed, with few errors in its complex setting of text and marginalia. In the quarto all stage directions are set in roman type, with the text itself consistently set in italic. The only oddity in the setting is the use of a very large upper case font for the first heading ‘SONG.’ at line 47 (it is the same size as is used for the inscription to Juno at 29).
The 1616 folio text, which runs from 4G6-4I5, pages 911-33, was printed from an uncorrected copy of the quarto, as is evidenced from its reproduction of the erroneous Latin alterius ultrius. No stop-press corrections were made in the pages of this masque, in which six errors in the quarto were corrected:
| Quarto | Folio | |
| 512 | Exequution | execution |
| 551 | Transparent | transparent |
| 680 | And end | An end |
| 754 | Brides | bride |
| marginalia 138 | Cingoloruus | Cingulorum |
| marginalia 215 | daughter^Saturn | daughter of Saturn |
None of these corrections strongly imply authorial attention to the printer’s copy. It is evident that there was no serious proof reading of the folio text itself, for it introduced a number of new errors:
| Quarto | Folio | |
| 156 | Ingenuous | ingenious |
| 264 | This | the |
| 304 | Remembrance | rembembrance |
| 503 | Two | to |
| 674 | Satiety | society |
| 711 | This | their |
| 792 | Musique | masque |
| 845 | submit to Right | submit a right |
| marginalia 142 | that estate | the state |
Typographically the folio, after the opening prefatory matter, prints the text of the masque in roman, rather than the quarto’s italic type. It is, however, inconsistent in its setting of stage directions, with the majority set in italic, but some retaining the quarto’s roman type. So, for example, at 4H2v, p. 916, the stage direction ‘Here the upper part . . .’ (188) begins in italic, but continues in roman type at the top of 4H3 from ‘other a timbrell (193), reverting to italic for the next stage direction, but then setting the direction on p. 918 (‘The Song . . . spake’, 241-5) in roman. The long additional description of the masque (including the opening stage direction for the barriers), 511-603, is printed in roman, reverting to italic for the next stage direction.
But the most significant changes to the folio text come from Jonson’s decision to eliminate all trace of the occasion of the masque, in response to the scandal that enveloped Frances Howard following the annulment of her marriage to Essex, and the revelation of her complicity in the murder of Thomas Overbury (see Challenge, Headnote, for details). Lines 89-95, 218-23, and 754-72, listing the participants in masque and barriers, were eliminated, as were lines 580-595, which recorded the contributions of Jones, Ferrabosco, and Giles.
The nature of the copy underlying the quarto printing must, inevitably, be a matter of conjecture. There is one example of Jonson’s characteristic ‘’hem’ (16), and a number of his Latinate spellings: ‘aequall’ (181), ‘sphaere’ (217), ‘aemulate’ (386), ‘fruicts’ (541), ‘praescribe’ (678) and ‘praesident’ (marginalia, 2). Of these only ‘sphaere’ is transmitted to the folio, all the others being normalised. The presence of these spellings, together with a fair scattering of Jonson’s preferred ‘y’ spellings of words such as ‘ayre’ (189, 203, 320 etc.), ‘ioyne’ (155, 180 etc.), ‘waytes’ (214), some of which survived into the folio, and the uniform use of his preferred ‘daunce’, perhaps indicates the likelihood that the printer’s copy was a Jonson holograph, though, as the Textual Analysis for Blackness indicates, the evidence, in the absence of examples of Jonson’s most eccentrically characteristic spelling of ‘theyr’, is not conclusive.