Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly was first printed in F1 , where it occupies sigs. 4N6v-4O3, pages 984-9. The first four pages are printed in double columns, as had been the middle pages of Oberon. There might be a number of reasons for this (see Oberon: Textual Essay), but the short heptasyllabic lines made double column printing possible, and it may be that there was some perceived need to save space as the end of the whole volume approached. The double-column printing does mean, however, that Jonson’s notes (apart from the first) are somewhat inelegantly placed between the lines of the text, rather than being set in the margin.
The masque falls into that portion of F1 which had to be reset or reimposed as a consequence of a failure to run off sufficient pages (see Barriers: Textual Essay, for details). In the pages making up this masque 4N6v-4O2v were reimposed; 4O3 was reset. In addition, corrections were introduced to the first imposition of 4O1. None of these corrections, nor the few tidyings up that were introduced into the reimposed formes, however, are of substantive interest.
In Tenbury MS 1018 (JnB 679), an early seventeenth-century manuscript of songs and madrigals, two of the songs from the masque survive in settings by Alfonso Ferrabosco. He was one of the musicians paid for his services, and they therefore must derive from the masque performance itself. Both ‘Oh what a fault’, which ends at line 294, without the chorus and exchange with the priest, and a complete setting of ‘How near to good’ (299-306), display variation from the printed text. But between these two songs comes a setting of words beginning ‘Senses by unjust force banished’. Walls (1996, 60 ) considers that the way in which this song runs on from its predecessor indicates that it ‘must have been performed in or intended for this masque’, a view first offered by Cutts (1956, 227 ), and followed by Duffy (1980, 166 ), and Sabol (1978, 67-71 ). Its text is:
sences by vniust force bannisht
from the obiecte of you[r] pleasure;
now of you is all ende vannisht,
you who late possest more treasure;
when eies fedd one what did shyne,
and ears dranke what was deuine
then the earthes brode arms could measure.
Chan (1980, 271 ), is less convinced. She rightly observes that ‘the text of this second song is corrupt: its meaning for the context is not at all obvious, and before assuming it was, indeed, part of Love Freed, the authority of the manuscript itself as a source for masque songs would have to be established’.
Her caution seems to me just. In this manuscript songs not infrequently run one into the next, with but a pause marked to signal the ending. Whilst it is true that at the end of ‘Oh what a fault’ Ferrabosco’s name is not added after or above the final cadence, as it is to the other masque songs, this practice is not universal in the manuscript. The absence of a ‘signing off’, which persuaded Cutts that this song seemed ‘to replace the dialogue between Priest and Chorus given in the text of the masque’ does not seem to me sufficient evidence to claim that the songs must be linked. The sequence of songs in the manuscript, in any case, does not suggest that its compiler had the masque sources in mind. From fol. 36-37v the sequence is as follows:
‘Nay, nay you must not stay’ (Oberon)
‘Lacrimar sempre’ (a text with no known concordances)
‘Oh what a fault’ (Love Freed)
‘sences by vniust force’ (?)
‘how neere to good’ (Love Freed)
‘Gentle knights’ (Oberon)
The separation of the two songs from Oberon is evidence enough that the transcriber was not mindful of the origins of the songs in assembling the manuscript. Presumably the compiler had access to a number of Ferrabosco songs, which were transcribed for domestic consumption as solo songs – hence the omission of the chorus which makes up the final four lines of ‘Oh what a fault’ – in a sequence which owes nothing directly to their origin in the two masques.
But if we may lay to one side the supposition that ‘sences by vniust’ force represents a Jonsonian first or second thought, cancelled either before or after the performance, the textual variations in the two songs undoubtedly from Love Freed raise rather different questions.
The collation is as follows:
292 to haue lost] F1; hadd beene loste MS
301 lines] MS (lynes); lives F1
303 wish to see it still] F1; wth it still to see MS
304 waies] F1; way MS
Whilst the ‘w[i]th’ in 303, and the singular ‘way’ in 304 are probably transcription errors, ‘lynes’ in 301 endorses Whalley’s conjectural emendation, adopted by all subsequent editors. The altering of the word order in both 292 and 303 retains the metre, and makes perfectly good sense, and, furthermore, in both cases the adaptation fits rather more successfully to Ferrabosco’s vocal line than does Jonson’s text. Of course these variations might have been introduced in the transmission of the musical score after the masque performance, but it is at least possible that in these two cases we have either a Jonsonian first thought, or, perhaps more likely, an example of the way a composer might feel free to modify the lyrics he was given in the interests of his music. It is quite possible that these were the words actually heard by the first audience.
The first of these songs, ‘Oh what a fault’ appears in two Oxford MSS, Christ Church, CCC.328, fol. 88, and Bodleian Library, Eng.poet. e.14 fol. 11v, where the addition of a second stanza converts Jonson’s lyric into a poem ‘On his mistress that had the small pox’. These clearly postdate the masque and have no textual authority.
There is no clear evidence of the nature of the copy underlying F1. The stage directions at 289 are in the past tense of report, but at 298 the present tense is used, and other stage directions are neutral. The spelling ‘praecipitate’ at 265 is characteristically Jonsonian, but there are few other clear markers of his hand. As with others of these later masques in F1 it would seem likely that either an original or good copy of Jonson’s final draft of his contribution to the masque was lightly but unsystematically revised after the performance.
A list of variants, derived principally from David Gants’s systematic collation of F1, is appended:
page break4N1:6 (o)
4N6v 984
| State 1 | State 2 | State 3 | |
| rt | Maſques | ~ | [omit] |
| C2-35 | it no | ~ | it is no |
State 1: 40
State 2: the rest
State 3: 4, 10, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 30, 31, 33, 36, 38, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48
(for state 2 variants, see collation of 4N1 in Textual Essay for Prince Henry’s Barriers)
4O 1:6 (o)
4O1 985
| State 1 |
State 2
(identical with State 3) |
|
| Col. 1 | ||
| 21 | iorney | Iourney |
| 37 | extreame | Extreme |
| 49 | Spinx | Sphynx |
| Col. 2 | ||
| 5 | mayd∧ | ~, |
| 31 | vntie∧ | ~, |
| 42 | No∧ | ~, |
State 1: 26
State 2: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 19, 24, 25, 32, 33, 34, 37, 43
State 3: the rest
(For State 3 variants, see the Textual Essay to A Challenge at Tilt)
4O 2:5 (o)
4O2 987
| State 1 | State 2 | ||
| Col. 1 | |||
| 4 | you∧ | ~ : |
State 1:
State 2: 4, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48
4O 3:4 (o)
4O3 989
| State 1 | State 2 (identical with State 3) | |
| 4 | wee | we |
| 7 | Maſque-daunce | [swash 'M’]aſque-dance |
| 12 | euery | euerie |
| 14 | hee | he |
| 15 | euery | euerie |
| 24 | Mu ſes | [swash 'M’]uſes |
| 26 | angry | angrie |
| 28 | Muſes | [swash `M’]uſes |
| 29 | Weſt | weſt |
State 1: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 34, 37, 39, 40, 43, 47
State 2: 4, 21, 28,
State 3: the rest
(For state 3 variants, see the Textual Essay to Love Restored)
COPIES COLLATED (by David L. Gants)
1. Huntington Library, 62100
2. Huntington Library, 62101
3. Huntington Library, 62104
4. Huntington Library, 62105
5. Huntington Library, 495467 (Ford Copy ‘A’)
6. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751, Copy 1
7. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751, Copy 2
8. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751, Copy 3
9. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751, Copy 4
10. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751, Copy 5
11. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751, Copy 6
12. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751.2, copy 1
13. Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 14751.2, copy 2
14. Library of Congress, Yorke W.4.4
15. Gants Personal Copy, Fenton bookplate
16. Gants Personal Copy, Everard Home bookplate
17. British Library, G. 11630 (Grenville copy)
18. Boston Public Library, XfG .3811 .5
19. Boston University, YPR 2600 .C16
20. Wellesley College, qx - English Poetry
21. Bodleian Library, Douce I. 302
22. Huntington Library, 499968
23. Huntington Library, 499967
24. Huntington Library, 499971
25. Huntington Library, 606199
26. Huntington Library, 606202
27. Huntington Library, 606200
28. Huntington Library, 606574
29. Huntington Library, 606576
30. Huntington Library, 606599
31. Huntington Library, 606579
32. Huntington Library, 606582
33. Huntington Library, 606583
34. Brown University, Providence, PR 2600 - 1616
35. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Lewis PR2600 1616
36. University of Texas, Austin, Ah/ J738/ +B616a
37. University of Texas, Austin, Ah/ J738/ +B616ab
38. University of Texas, Austin, Ah/ J738/ +B616ad
39. University of Texas, Austin, Ah/ J738/ +B616af
40. University of Texas, Austin, Ah/ J738/ +B616ah
41. University of Texas, Austin, Ah/ J738/ +B616ak
42. University of Texas, Austin, Ah/ J738/ +B616am
43. University of Texas, Austin, AH/ J738/ +B616an
44. University of Texas, Austin, Wh/ J738/ +B616a
45. University of Texas, Austin, Pforz. 559
46. University of Texas, Austin, Woodward-Ruth 181
47. University of Texas, Austin, Stark 6431
48. University of Virginia, E 1616 .J64