The Vision of Delight was first printed in F2 , where it occupies sigs. C4v-D3r of the masque section, paginated 16-21. This is slightly out of chronological sequence; it is placed after Lovers Made Men, when in the strict order of performances it should have preceded it.

There is little specific sign that the text was based on a manuscript in Jonson’s own hand. None of Jonson’s characteristic elisions are present, and at 15 F2 prints ‘t’expect’ where Jonson would have written ‘to’expect’. Another straw in the wind is the use of the term ‘The Quire’; elsewhere Jonson almost always refers to a ‘Chorus’. The only other masques to use the term ‘Quire’ are Gold. Age (a text probably based on a scribal transcript) and, in a single passing reference, Pleasure Rec., 97. However, the unusual spellings ‘Phant’sie’ (37, et seq.) and ‘Phantos’mes’ (107) may well preserve Jonson’s preferences (at 107 the Newcastle manuscript standardizes ‘Phantos’mes’ to ‘Phantomes’). Another distinctive feature is the chaotic state of the stage directions, some of which are couched in the present tense, some in the past, and some in both. Were the text authorial, one might expect consistency, either as an indication of action to be performed, or as a report of action that had been seen on stage. As things stand, the directions seem to have been incompletely worked over by someone converting them from present tense to past. It is perhaps not irrelevant that the SD at 220 (‘They Danc’d with Ladies, and the whole Revels followed’) repeats almost word for word the formula used at the same place in Pleasure Reconciled, a manuscript of which survives in the hand of the scribe Ralph Crane. There are, though, none of the other usual indicators of Crane’s hand.

Some music historians have seen the phrase ‘stylo recitativo’ (4) as a sign that the transcription postdates the performance by several years, on the assumption that Italianate recitative was not current in England before 1628 (see Headnote). Conceivably, Jonson could have inserted this phrase later, if he were preparing some of his masques for publication, say around 1630-31 when he may have been drawing together material for a second folio, only part of which was printed. Alternatively, the phrase could have been inserted by the printer, carrying it forward from Lovers Made Men, F2’s immediately preceding text, where it explains the musical form of the masque. Against this, the most recent musicological study is inclined to accept that the music did involve some kind of recitative, and hence that the text accurately represents what was performed in 1617 (Walls, 1996, 86-9 ).

Some transcripts of the masque, or parts of it, must have circulated after the performance, for a scribal extract is preserved in fols. 40v-41 of MS Harley 4955 (the Newcastle manuscript, JnB 735). This is a copy of Fant’sy’s nonsense speech and the beginning of the ensuing dialogue (lines 49-116). The text corresponds very closely to F2, with only the following substantive variants (I give F2’s readings first):

58 were] are

77 of the] of

86 plead] play

96 at] in

98 a] on

105 On] or

107 came] comes

107 which] That

108 proceeded] proceeds

The present-tense stage direction at 107-8 suggests that JnB 735 derives from Jonson’s performance text and has no intermediate relationship with F2. JnB 735 also puts brackets around ‘I hope’ (112) in the Jonsonian manner.

Music for the concluding song, by Aurora, survives in British Library Egerton MS 2013, fol. 45v (JnB 736). The textual underlay has the following variants:

223 Tythons] F2; Titans JnB 736

227 come away] F2; come away come away JnB 736

The setting does not include any music for the Choir’s final four lines.

The printing of F2 has various inaccuracies, but a collation of forty-two copies has uncovered no variants in the press-work, even though some of the errors are very obvious. The verse indentations often seem arbitrary, especially on sig. D2v (corrected in this edition: see collations to 182, 185, 196), and the final page is notably badly printed, with two words missing (217, 220) and a misplaced parenthesis in the SD at 221. The parenthesis may simply have been positioned after the wrong word, but it might indicate material that was added in as an afterthought. Alternatively, perhaps a word such as ‘having’ or ‘being’ was omitted or intended to be implied, thus: ‘the Night and Moone [having] descended’. There is also an inconsistency between the catchword on D1v (‘Behold!’) and the opening of D2 (‘Behold’).

A particular problem is presented by Fant’sy’s speech, the rollicking anapaests of which are frequently quite irregular. It seems likely that Jonson expected that the speech would be delivered with much elision, for without it some of its more overloaded lines cannot be rendered consistently metrical: for example, ‘A feather’for a wisp were a fit moderator’ (63), or ‘Though the bellows and’the bagpipe were ne’er so good friends’ (68). Both F2 and JnB 735 indicate only a selection of the possible elisions, though the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editors introduced several more. This edition modernizes the elisions ‘nev’r’ and ‘ev’r’ to their standard equivalents ‘ne’er’ and ‘e’er’, but otherwise holds back from intruding too much textual normalization, especially where the readings of F2 and JnB 735 agree. For the sake of clarifying an already difficult speech, and in order to suggest how the verse may have been spoken in performance, the collation and commentary record some of the other potential elisions that could be adopted.

Outside the collected editions, The Vision of Delight has appeared in The Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities of James I, ed. John Nichols (1828) ; Ben Jonson: Masques and Entertainments, ed. Henry Morley (1890) ; Ben Jonson: Complete Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (1969) ; Ben Jonson: Selected Masques, ed. Stephen Orgel (1970) ; and Inigo Jones; The Theatre of the Stuart Court, ed. Stephen Orgel and Roy Strong (1973) .

The following copies of F2 have been collated for this edition:

1. Boston Public Library, **G.3811.8 (Sir Lister Holte copy)

2. Brotherton Library, Leeds, Brotherton Collection Fol 1640 JON

3. Brotherton Library, Leeds, Brotherton Collection Lt q JON

4. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754, copy 1

5. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754, copy 2

6. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754, copy 3

7. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754, copy 4

8. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754, copy 5

9. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754, copy 6

10. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754a, copy 1

11. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C., 14754a, copy 2

12. Huntington Library, San Marino, California: 62101-v.2

13. Huntington Library, San Marino, California: 62103

14. Huntington Library, San Marino, California: 495468 (Schlatter-Shaver copy)

15. Huntington Library, San Marino, California: 600688

16. Huntington Library, San Marino, California: 606598

17. Houghton Library, Harvard University, fSTC 14751 v.2 (Norton Perkins copy)

18. Houghton Library, Harvard University, HEW 6.10.10. v.2 (Widener copy)

19. Library of Congress, Washington D.C., PR2600 1616a copy 2 [a copy of F2, notwithstanding the call number]

20. Library of Congress, Washington D.C., PR2600 1640 copy 2

21. Library of Congress, Washington D.C., PR2600 1640 copy 3

22. New York Public Library, *KC 1640

23. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Vet.A2 d. 73

24. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Gibson 520

25. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Don. d. 66

26. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Douce I.303

27. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Gibson 518

28. University of Pennsylvania, Folio STC 14754 (Furness-Schelling copy)

29. University of Pennsylvania, Folio STC 14754 (RBC copy)

30. University of Pennsylvania, PR2600 C40 v.2 (Edwin Forrest copy)

31. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Pforz. 560

32. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Pr 2600

1640 vol. 1, copy 1, Stark 5433

33. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Pr 2600

1640 vol. 2, copy 2, Woodward-Ruth 1

34. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Wh J738

+B641

35. Clark Library, Los Angeles, *F PR2600 1640c

36. Beinecke Library, Yale University: J738+B640 copy 1 (C. W. Bradley copy)

37. Beinecke Library, Yale University: J738+B640 copy 2

38. Beinecke Library, Yale University: J738+B640B (Morris Tyler copy)

39. Beinecke Library, Yale University: 1977+424 (John Milton Boardman copy)

40. Beinecke Library, Yale University: 1978+47 (Norman Holmes Peason copy)

41. David Gants, personal copy

42. Martin Butler, personal copy