There are two witnesses for Volpone, the 1607 quarto (Q) published by Thomas Thorpe and the version published by William Stansby in his 1616 folio of Jonson’s Works (F1) . Opinion in the twentieth century was divided as to the relative merits of the two texts, and as to how much of Jonson’s personal authority each carried. The two extremes are well represented by, on the one hand, Herford and Simpson, and on the other, Henry de Vocht; their views on Volpone were entirely consistent with their general positions on the relative authority of Jonsonian texts. H&S maintained their usual preference for folio texts, claiming that most of F1’s press-corrections ‘are the author’s, made at the printing office where he would present himself for this purpose every morning’ (9.72) . While they acknowledged that Q carried considerable authority, they argued that Jonson himself ‘carefully corrected’ the copy from which the F1 text was set up, thereby conferring on the latter even more authority (5.7-8).
Against this, in his edition of Volpone (1937), de Vocht argued at length (as he did in respect of several other plays) that Jonson had nothing to do with F1, and that only Q carried his authority -- an argument that H&S, and most other scholars, have dismissed as preposterous (9.74-84) . Yet de Vocht’s exposure of some of the manifest inadequacies of the folio began a scholarly trend which has steadily undermined the confidence which H&S vested in it, especially as to the role which Jonson himself played in the printing process (Donovan, 1991; Gants, 1999). In the case of Volpone, this has resulted in what we might characterise as an honourable tie: equal respect for both Q and F1, and an agreement that the differences between them are insignificant compared with their consensus. Indeed, several respected editors have concluded that, since both Q and F1 are good texts, very similar in most important respects, and carry at least something of Jonson’s authority, a conflation of the two is a respectable solution for a modern edition. John Creaser argued: ‘I therefore print what is frankly an eclectic text, following Q or F as coherence demands, and, when both are coherent, choosing that reading which seems to me preferable on literary grounds’ (1978, 60). Brian Parker reached similar conclusions, while giving some precedence to F1: ‘It seems wisest, then, for an edition such as this to use Q and F together. The present edition is therefore based on the 1616 folio text, with 1607 quarto readings occasionally preferred’ (rev. edn, 1999, 6).
While recognizing that some compromises along these lines are probably inevitable in producing a serviceable modern text, I want to argue for more careful discriminations. The argument against such eclectic conflation has to be the one increasingly recognised in relation to editions of Hamlet and King Lear: that it actually produces a hybrid which no author ever sanctioned and no early audience or readership ever responded to. Moreover, it ignores the ways in which the specificities of a text are tied to the moment of its production and so to the contexts within which it was received. Even when the substance of two texts is very similar, they may make rather different statements.
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Q (STC 14783) was ‘Printed for Thomas Thorppe. 1607’ (title page), and the date can be further determined by Jonson’s signature of the Epistle as ‘From my house in the Black-Friars this 11.of February.1607.’ (sig. ¶4). W. W. Greg and most other authorities assume that these are calendar, as distinct from legal, dates and that the printing was largely done in the early weeks of 1607, with the Epistle and eleven commendatory poems being among the last items set (Greg, 1939-59, 1.390). The full collation is: π2, ¶4, A-N4, O2, a total of sixty unnumbered leaves. The Epistle is set entirely on the sheet designated ¶, which is a different paper in some copies. The commendatory poems start on the last side of ¶ and then occupy the whole of sheet A; in two copies only, that gathering has a cancel leaf on which Nathan Field’s poem has been inserted. Thorpe did not enter the play in the Stationers’ Register, but it was almost certainly ‘allowed’, probably by Sir George Buc, who held the reversion to become Master of the Revels and had started ‘allowing’ plays for the press the year before. It was also licensed by the Stationers’ Company (since they did not challenge later transfers of ownership), though Thorpe did not opt for the extra security of an entry in the Register (see Blayney, 1997, esp. 396-404).
On the evidence of a chip in the upper rule of the only ornament in the text, the initial N at the start of the Epistle (sig. ¶1), the printing has been identified as the work of George Eld, a flourishing printer who often worked for Thorpe (Lavin, 1970). He had, for example, printed Sejanus and Eastward Ho! (both 1605) for him, and would print the masques of Blackness and of Beauty in 1608. Eld was well used to printing plays, also being responsible for the texts of All Fools, A Trick to Catch the Old One, The Revenger’s Tragedy, and Troilus and Cressida around this time. Yet only the heavily-annotated Sejanus provided anything of a preparation for the distinctive text Q Volpone would be, one which conspicuously presents itself as a work of substance and reflection. Jonson invested considerable effort to make it as impressive as possible, writing a dedicatory Epistle which (given the suppression of the ‘The Apologetical Dialogue’ to Poetaster) was his most substantial exercise in that form in print to date; he also attracted as many as eleven commendatory verses. The quarto is laid out (note the acrostic-style ‘Argument’) in the style normally associated with humanist editions of the classic Roman comedy of Plautus and Terence, with which it implicitly vies for comparison. This format makes it a distinctly readerly text, reflecting almost nothing of playhouse practice (most scholars agree that it was based on a very clean copy, close to Jonson’s own working papers). The characters in a scene are all listed, continental-style, at its head and we are left to deduce their comings and goings. Yet it is a feature of the typically heavy and elaborate punctuation of this text that it goes out of its way to capture dramatic effects, for example: ‘Am not I here? whom you have made? your creature?’ (1.5.78, D1). It is not possible finally to determine whether such features reflect Jonson’s own practice or intentions, but they are distinctive part of a fine text and clearly should not be ignored.
None of the numerous studies of Eld’s work as a printer of plays has been able to establish with any certainty distinctive spelling or other practices on the part of the compositors he employed (Williams, 1950-1, 141; Walker, 1957, 129-31; Murray, 1962, 200; Yamada, 1964; Price, 1967; Evans, 1970, 1973). So it is impossible to tell if any particular features of Q derive from such factors. It seems likely, however, that several compositors did collaborate in its setting, as well as that the printing suffered from the kinds of hiccups and accommodations which were inevitable in a busy workplace. Gatherings ¶ and A have a stick which is only 33/8 inches (8.83 cm) long, as opposed to the 311/16 inches (9.37 cm) employed throughout the other gatherings. Most pages have 34 or 35 lines of text, with a regularity normally easy to follow in verse texts, but gathering E (which includes the prose mountebank scene) is irregular, with 36 lines on E1v and E2, while E3 has only 33. Gathering I is also erratic in page lengths: I1 has 36 lines, I3 has 37 lines and I4v only 31. This gathering also appears to be anomalous in having aberrant running titles. The evidence here is tenuous, since (once we are clear of the preliminary matter) the running titles are short and the same, ‘THE FOXE.’, on both rectos and versos, and variations may well derive from inking differences, damage to type and paper shrinkage. But it does seem that the running titles from gatherings C, E, F, H, L, and M all come from the same forme-setting, while those from gatherings D and G, and K and N come from two further forme-settings. Only those for gathering I are not reiterated, suggesting that the printing may have been interrupted and reset. Gathering I also features a peculiar use of accented letters in English words, perhaps because for a time it was all that was available in the busy shop. By the same token, gathering N (outer) features an anomalous rash of italic exclamation marks, in place of the normal roman ones. It is not impossible that some of these inconsistencies arose from sharing the work with another print-shop, though there is nothing (e.g. mixed paper types) to suggest this.
Press corrections seem to have been sporadic rather than systematic, with certain formes (notably B inner, D outer, E outer and M outer) receiving much heavier attention than others, in as many as four or five stages: see the collation by forms below. Some changes (notably those on sig. H4v) clearly derive from damage to the type rather than from action by compositors, though there are also instances of mis-correction. In all of this some relatively eye-catching mistakes (such as ‘Mautuano’ for ‘Mantuano’ on D4r) seem to have gone uncorrected for a good deal of the print run, while some were never corrected (e.g. successive speeches given to Avocatore 4 at 4.6.7-8, a confusion of ‘VOLP.’ and ‘VOLT.’ speech prefixes at 5.10.5, the totally anomalous ‘BON.3’ speech prefix at 5.12.42, and the mis-heading of 5.5 as ‘ACT.4. SCENE.5’). Most of these would have been picked up very quickly in preparing the play for performance, but not it seems in the print-shop. All of which casts considerable doubt on the traditional view of an ultra-fastidious Jonson, daily correcting his proofs. Incidentally, the heading of the final scene as 5.10 is not a mistake, as commonly supposed, but indicates the resumption of action suspended by 5.11, a distinction lost in F1’s 5.12: see 5.11 headnote. In this we probably do see Jonson’s purposeful hand. But while it is clear that the grand design of the volume mattered to Jonson, it is far less certain that he attended so minutely to most details of the printed text, many of the features of which -- flaws and virtues alike -- are consistent with the normal practices of a busy professional Jacobean print-shop.
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The same is also true, however, of the text in the 1616 Works. By then Thorpe had sold his rights in the play to Walter Burre, in a transaction which was recorded in the Stationers’ Register, under 3 October 1610:
Entred for his Copyes by assignement from
Walter Burre Thomas Thorpe and with the consente of Th’
wardens under their handes, 2 bookes th[e]
one called, SEIANUS his fall, th[e] other,
VULPONE or the foxxe. xijd/. (Arber, 3.201)
Burre, however, was never responsible for an edition of the play. It seems that he came to an understanding with William Stansby about the inclusion in the 1616 Works of items to which he held the rights. But it was not until 1635, when Stansby was planning a two-volume folio Works, that a formal transfer of rights was recorded, under 4 July:
Master Stansby Entred for his Copies by verture of a noate
under the hand of Walter Burre and master
Matthew Lowndes warden bearing date the
0th of June 1621 as thereby appeareth
these Copies following (viz. t) by order
of a Court ... The ffoxe iijs.vjd. (Arber, 4.316)
Another note of 4 March 1639 (Arber, 4.432-4) transfers all of the dead Stansby’s rights in Jonson’s writings to Richard Bishop, who published what is usually known as the Second Folio in 1640. To round the story out, we should add that there was a Third Folio in 1692. But neither the Second nor the Third Folio has any textual authority as far as Volpone is concerned.
Stansby’s 1616 Volpone (F1) shows every sign of having been set from a marked-up copy of Q, not least in that it perpetuates several of the errors we have already noted (e.g. the confusion of ‘VOLP.’ and ‘VOLT’ at 5.10.5, the ‘BON.3’ at 5.12.42, and the mis-heading of 5.5 as ‘ACT.4. SCENE.5’). And in general the substance of the text was changed far less than that of most of the other quarto-texts reproduced in the folio, doubtless because its humanist format already strongly resembled the one Stansby and Jonson agreed on for the folio. Even so, there are (de Vocht estimates) some three thousand differences between the two texts. To be sure the overwhelming majority of these are minor matters of orthography and type-setting, which have no bearing on the sense and may well not have been directly sanctioned by Jonson. F1, for example, is far less lavish than Q in its use of italic print and capital letters; but one casualty of this is that Q’s ‘the Courtier’ (I3v, meaning Castiglione’s book) is rendered fatuously as ‘the courtier’ (4.2.35), which suggests that this was a mechanical change in the print-shop that could hardly have been overseen by Jonson. By the same token, the change of names within the text from italic type to small roman capitals smacks of house-style rather than of authorial intervention. Similarly, the printers may well have been responsible for omitting Q’s diareses, circumflex accents, stresses on foreign words, and those anomalous accents on English words.
But who was responsible for the changes to the play’s punctuation? Philip Brockbank observes: ‘The punctuation of both Q and F may be said largely to conform to Jonson’s principles and practice, as manifest in other texts and declared in his Grammar. It tends to display as fully as possible the grammatical elements of each clause and sentence, and to regulate the movement of the syntax with a high degree of precision’ (Brockbank, xxxiii). There are, nevertheless, distinct differences between the two texts in how such matters are marked, and some (e.g. Pirnie, 1996) have seen in this Jonson’s own editorial hand, tilting the weight of authority towards F1.
The punctuation in F1 is even heavier than that in Q. There is a significant increase in the use of commas; a clearer predilection for parentheses to highlight distinct units of thought/meaning (quotations, adjunct phrases and – if not entirely consistently – asides), though Q is not without this, especially in the trial scenes; a greater use of exclamation marks (see 1.1.21, 25, 26; 1.2. 39, 88; 1.4.11, 70 (state 2), 75 (state 2); 1.5.66, 79, 108, 109, 114; 2.1.35, 42, 50, 51, 55, 60; 2.2.9, 12, 74, 161; 2.4.36; 2.5.8, 9, 24, 29, 30, 35, 40; 2.6.7, 10; 3.1.29; 3.2.18, 35; 3.4.22, 35, 85, 96; 3.7.67, 69, 87, 265, 276; 3.8.3; 4.1.17; 4.2.7, 20, 26; 4.3.11, 20; 4.6.25; 5.2.86; 5.3.22, 37, 61, 82; 5.4. 27; 5.10.35; 5.12.5); and a fuller use of dashes to mark incomplete utterances and interruptions (cf. 1.1.40 (state 2), 51 (state 2), 66; 1.3.27, 31, 32; 1.4. 87 (state 2), 112, 113, 114 (twice), 117, 125, 130; 2.2.180; 3.3.24; 4.5.139; 5.2.74, 96; 5.7.6).
For both exclamation marks and dashes, the sheer number of instances may seem to suggest the systematic attention of an author. Yet in both cases it is worth noting a significant amount of bunching – where you find one, you are likely to find another. So all of the new exclamation marks in 1.1 are on sig. 2P4 (p. 451) of F1, in 2.1, sig. 2Q5 (p. 465), in 2.5 sigs. 2R3 and v (pp. 473-4), in 4.2 sigs. 2T3 and v (pp. 497-8), in 5.3 sigs. 2V3v and 2V4 (pp. 510-11), and these comprise a significant proportion of the total. Moreover, a good number of instances were simple replacements of what in Q were question-marks (1.2.39; 2.1.35, 55, 60; 2.2.161; 2.5.8, 9; 3.8.3; 3.9.20; 4.1.17; 4.2.20; 4.3.11; 4.5.110; 5.3.22, 37): these two were always among the most interchangeable of early modern punctuation marks, often a matter of style rather than of substance. So if this was Jonson’s own work, it went somewhat in fits and starts, and some of it was pretty mechanical; the possibility that it was generated by printing-house practice or compositorial choice must be strong.
These doubts are even more marked with the dashes, where all instances from 1.3 are on sig. 2P6v (p. 456) and all from 1.4 (except the one introduced in a press-correction) on sig. 2Q2v (p. 460), comprising well over half of all the changes. Moreover, the great preponderance of new dashes (often substituting for Q’s common ending of syntactical units with semi-colons and even commas, which seem essentially to mark the same thing -- an uncompleted thought or utterance) occurs in the first half of the play. Around the mid-point, the practice actually goes into reverse, many of Q’s own dashes being replaced with stops, commas and semi-colons (see 3.7.111, 116, 122, 132, 239, 240 (x2), 241, 242 (x2), 243, 244, 246, 248, 249, 251, 253, 255, 256, 258, 259; 4.1.59; 4.5.16; 5.4.35; 5.9.19, 20; 5.10.19, 24, 26, 5.12.59, 103, 145). Again, the bunching is very marked. All the instances in 3.7 (where the vast majority are to be found) occur on sigs. 2S4v (p. 488) and 2S6 (p. 491); those on sig. 2S6 all in fact occur within Celia’s long speech (239-59), where she responds to Volpone’s attempted seduction. Philip Brockbank observes that here ‘the Quarto offers eight dashes in six lines . . . and has been held to make the speech more vehement and impulsive; the Folio reaches a climax, however, with much better control’ (Brockbank, 170). Actually, the more compelling statistic is 17 dashes in 21 lines, all but the last of which F1 replaces. The real question is whether the resulting difference is anything more than aesthetic, and if so whether it can be ascribed to authorial intention. Within the wider picture of textual variants, it must be doubted whether anyone was attending to this speech in isolation: the changes simply continue the practice established on sig. 2S4v and continued, predominantly if less systematically, throughout the remaining text. It seems difficult to believe that the person who decisively introduced new dashes in F1 1.3 and 1.4 equally decisively abandoned old ones in 3.7. In this particular, at least, the punctuation changes between Q and F1 are surely a matter of mixed compositorial choice rather than of authorial intervention.
All of this severely undermines Karen Pirnie’s elegant analogies, based on the assumption that Jonson himself revised Celia’s speech at 3.7.239-59: ‘In the folio Works, then, Jonson created a body and a voice for himself. Celia’s wit and self-control in the Folio parallel the wit and control Jonson exerted over the corpus of his texts in publishing the Folio’ (1996, 48-9). Some compositor, rather than Jonson himself, almost certainly gave F1’s Celia her ‘wit and self-control’. And the pattern of changes to exclamation marks and dashes should give us pause about ascribing any other specific feature of F1’s punctuation to the author himself. F1 drops eight of what H&S dub Q’s ‘metrical apostrophes’, found ‘between two unelided but lightly sounded syllables to indicate they are metrically equivalent to one syllable’ (9.50), though it adds two of its own, one a press-correction. The printers may have been picking up some of Jonson’s cues, but they were certainly missing others: F1 is by no means a consistent guide to metre.
Stage Business: The jury is also out about who was responsible for the twenty-nine marginal stage directions that appear for the first time in F1. (That at 2.3.2 does not appear until state 2, while that at 5.8.0 is not in state 3 of F1.) It may be helpful here to consider that while, as I have said, F1 was clearly set up from a copy of Q, it also reflects various aspects of stage business in which Q was little interested. The stage directions fall into the pattern of revisions for folio publication reviewed by Peter M. Wright (1991) , who seems not to have doubted that they were by Jonson himself. But there are various other changes, not considered by Wright, which complicate the picture. One of these is a rather perfunctory submission to the requirements of the Act to Restrain Abuses of Players (see Epistle, 33-4n.): this presumably substituted ‘yet’ for ‘God’ in the first line of the Prologue, and ‘Spight o’’ for ‘Blood of’ at 2.3.1. Both seem rather lame, especially the latter, which spoils the run-on from the end of the previous scene (Volpone: ‘that were as black as --- ’ Corvino: ‘Blood of the devil ...’). Why would Jonson have made such changes to his printed text, which was not in any case subject to the Act? (See Mowat, 2005. ) A similar question arises in respect of the designation of the gallery where Voltore is placed to wait in 1.2. In Q this is twice ‘within’ (87, 99); in F1 both of these are changed to ‘without’. It is difficult to say exactly what this change denotes. The gallery is surely within the house: it seems most likely that this is a way of indicating its stage relationship to the only room of the house we actually see (cf. 1.2.87n.). Some practicality of staging (e.g. what to do with Volpone’s couch when it is not on stage) may have prompted the
change. There is also the rather odd change of the description of Bonario as a ‘youth’ (Q, 4.5.4) to ‘young man’ (F1). Surely the most compelling reason for such a change would be that the actor playing the role at some particular point was too old to pass as a ‘youth’. So all of these changes are ones which would matter to the players, but not to Jonson or to his readers. Is it possible that they are the work of the company’s book-keeper rather than of the author? The book-keeper was certainly on occasion expected to regularize the text in respect of oaths, and the ‘allowed’ copy would have been brought into line with the Act to Restrain Abuses whenever Volpone was first revived after May 1606 (Bawcutt, 1996a, 182-3). But how would his amendments be on the copy which reached the printer? One explanation would be that a copy of Q somehow became the ‘allowed’ copy for performance purposes, conceivably after the original was lost in the fire which destroyed the Globe in 1613, and that is what was used as the basis for F1.
However we account for it, there seems no doubt that some aspects of actual stage practice found their way into the text of F1. And this may be relevant in relation to its sidenoted stage-directions. Most of these, such as directions for knocking, could easily be deduced from the text. Others – such as the indications of whom Mosca addresses successively in 4.4.15-25 – depend on a closer attention to the play. But only ‘Cestus’ at 5.2.102, a learned (and, in the context, singularly redundant) gloss rather than a stage direction, could indisputably only have come from Jonson, possibly prompted by revisiting his note on the subject in the text of Hym. All the others could, like the other stage business we have observed, have been the work of a book-keeper.
It is indisputable that Jonson had some hand in the changes which created F1, most particularly in the Epistle, which of course was not an issue on stage. The earnest promise to publish what was presumably his commentary on Horace’s Ars Poetica (‘To which, vpon my next opportunity toward the examining & digesting of my notes, I shall speake more wealthily, and pay the World a debt,’ sig. ¶4) is reduced to a much more terse ‘To which I shall take the occasion elsewhere to speak’, doubtless because of his changing plans for that work (see Epistle, 89-91n.). The Epistle loses both its laconically provocative introduction (‘There followes an Epistle, if you dare venture on the length’, sig. ¶1) and the signature flourish, with its prosperous Blackfriars address – presumably also Jonson’s decisions. He had probably made a general agreement with Stansby that dedicatory poems, if preserved at all, would be removed to the head of the volume. But Jonson himself probably made the decision to reprint those by Bolton, Donne, and Beaumont in that context, and to jettison the others. It was perhaps while attending to such details that he tinkered with occasional words (e.g. ‘severe’ for ‘grave’ and ‘filth’ for ‘garbage’: Epistle, 58, 67), changes which hardly affect the meaning, are sporadic rather than regular features, and could even be the work of the printers (cf. ‘Yet’ for ‘Or’, 44; ‘in’ for ‘among’, 62), but seem more than casual.
In the text of the play proper, there are very few such tinkerings: ‘goodness’ for ‘vertue’ (4.5.43); ‘lords’ for ‘sires’ (4.5.72); and ‘Fitted’ for ‘Apted’ (5.4.55). ‘Archdukes’ for ‘Archduke’ (2.1.50) and ‘Catholic’ for ‘Christian’ (4.5.130: clearly associated with the substitution of ‘shame’ for ‘harm’ three lines earlier), are slightly more intriguing and almost certainly authorial, but hardly critical. There were far fewer press-corrections in F1 than in Q (though rather more, and rather more haphazard, than H&S assumed from their limited collation), partly of course because the copy the printers were working from was in such good order. The added ‘metrical apostrophe’ mentioned above, like the ‘Cestus’, are indications that Jonson was perhaps sometimes involved at this level. But at the other extreme, the severe disruptions to the text around 5.8.20 (sig. 2X1, p. 517) and 5.10.8-10 (sig. 2X1v, p. 518) are associated with the complete resetting of forme 2Y which has bemused editors of Epicene for some years (see the collation by formes for the extent of the changes, and Dutton, Epicene, 2003, 48-51, for some explanations). However precisely we account for this, it was almost certainly brought about by some press-house practice rather than by authorial intervention. But in the great majority of changes between Q and F1 it is impossible finally to say whether the printer or Jonson was responsible.
F1, then, certainly shows something of Jonson’s attention to the text after 1607. But precisely how much of the change may safely be ascribed to him cannot be determined. Particularly intriguing are all the changes relating to stage business. If this were merely a matter of the sidenoted stage directions, as previous accounts have largely supposed, these could have been supplied either by Jonson or by an attentive reader in the printshop. But the oaths and the changes of ‘within’ to ‘without’, and ‘youth’ to ‘young man’, suggest some level of theatrical involvement. If my suggestion that these might be ascribed to a book-keeper is unacceptable (it is difficult to see how, assuming the printers worked from a single copy of Q, a play-house copy could also acquire those changes which are undoubtedly Jonson’s own), is it possible that Jonson was involved in actual productions between 1607 and 1616, and kept a record of playhouse practice in the copy he also amended in other ways and eventually entrusted to Stansby? Given how little time we suspect was given to rehearsal of revivals, this is implausible (Gurr, 1996b, 102). Wright suggests: ‘we might suspect that all directions occurring in the Folio texts originated either in the author’s memory of an actual performance, or from his advice for one’ (p. 267) . In the case of Volpone, what really calls this into question is how little of ‘the author’s creative visualization of the play’s action’ (ibid) is actually involved. Is it possible that this whole process is something Jonson delegated to someone else? We know that the later playwright, Richard Brome, was already in his employment by the time the folio was in its planning stages. He could certainly have handled the efficient, if unimaginative, business of the stage directions. Even so, we need some slightly unusual further explanation for the variety of changes that made their way into F1 Volpone.
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We may conclude, therefore, that neither Q nor F1 is quite the flawless mirror of Jonson’s mind that, respectively, de Vocht and H&S argued them to be. Jonson’s involvement in the overall design of both texts is palpable, as is his attention to particular features of both. But his intervention as a tireless proof-reader of his own works is not. With the advantage of wider collations than was possible before modern jet travel we can see that, in both quarto and folio, the process of correction (or, often enough, mis-correction) was messier and more complex than earlier editors often supposed, but can as often be laid at the door of printing-house practice, compositorial preference, and sheer accident, as at that of an ever-eager author.
What are the implications of this for the choice of an editor’s copy-text, especially bearing in mind that many issues relating to type-setting, spelling, punctuation and revision will disappear altogether with modernization? Certainly it removes the old bibliographical yardstick of the author’s fullest or latest intentions as the critical determinants on many particulars. Yet the conclusion of Creaser and Parker, that this sanctions an eclectic conflation of the two versions is also problematic, since it ignores those specificities of the texts which were tied to their moments of publication. These moments may only have been separated by nine years but in some respects they were worlds apart.
The moment of the 1616 folio is the one which (as Jonson intended) most impressed itself on subsequent generations: of the seemingly timeless classic author, laureate of the Jacobean court, champion of print culture, father of his nation’s literary culture. And within that, Volpone is presented as a seriously self-sufficient monument, stripped of many of the accolades which originally accompanied it, and distanced from those that survive; the Epistle is neatly trimmed to lose a little self-conscious playfulness and boasting. It is indeed a classic, and has been reproduced as such in the majority of editions of the play since then. The 1607 quarto is an edgier document, representing a Jonson triumphant in the success of the play, yet still too close for comfort to his earlier struggles with authority. Much of this is located in the formidable preliminary matter of the dedicatory Epistle and the commendatory poems, an unusual embellishment for a mere quarto. While the former has been much read in relation to its critical precepts, it has been little appreciated how it also tacitly addresses issues in Jonson’s life and times beyond the purely literary. And the poems of commendation have been almost entirely ignored. They have only been reproduced – as the quarto intends, as a preface to the play – three times, by Rea (who did not have access to copies with the Nathan Field poem), by de Vocht and by Parker. But none of these editors has much to say about them. I have explained in the Introduction how I think the Epistle and the commendatory verse together introduce the ‘understanding’ reader to the tensions and topicality of Volpone itself. While something of that was doubtless still available to readers in 1616, it could hardly have had the same immediacy. That is the quality I hope to highlight in choosing the 1607 quarto as my copy-text.
* * *
There have been too many editions of Volpone for me to do full justice to all their virtues. The so-called Beardsley edition (1898) was planned to have 24 drawings and a critical essay by Aubrey Beardsley, but he died with only eight drawings complete, and Vincent O’Sullivan supplied the essay. It remains a fitting reminder of the ‘Decadents’’ interest in Jonson, and especially Volpone. Rea’s was the first full scholarly edition, most notable for proposing Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly, and its Defence in a letter to Martin Dorp, as ‘the chief source of Volpone’ (139). Subsequent scholarship has tempered that, as it has found complications in his enthusiastic identification of Sir Pol with Sir Henry Wotton, but this is still a valuable source. De Vocht’s diplomatic edition (1937) is too monomanic in his determination to prove Q the only text sanctioned by Jonson to be of much more than specialist interest; but his demonstration of the inadequacies of F1 put a salutary early shot across the bows of Percy Simpson who was then only half way through the edition he began with Charles Herford. The chief virtue of Sale’s edition is its bracing irreverence. Its annotation fights a running battle with what it regards as the overstated claims of Rea, but is also prepared to take on Jonson: when Volpone declares the ‘show’ of the zanies ‘very, very pretty’ (1.2.63), he retorts ‘The very, very wary documenter disagrees’. Despite taking F1 as copy text he is prepared to opt for Q’s dashes in Celia’s speech (2.5.39-59), reaching the opposite conclusion to Brockbank (see above). Kernan’s edition is notable for its thorough-going modernization, and attention to theatrical potential, while Cook’s annotation is particularly good on linguistic features and its rendering of difficult passages in appropriate modern paraphrase. Halio’s is a fine scholarly edition based on Q, but unaccountably omits the commendatory verse. Brockbank achieves a great deal in very confined circumstances, with some pithy interventions on everything from varieties of justice and Jonson’s language to the Venetian context. He is the first fully to bite the bullet of the mixed authority of the two witnesses, arguing wisely: ‘Each text may be right in any particular instance, but judgement begins with a prejudice in favour of the accidentals of the Quarto and the substantive readings of the Folio; it is also possible that both may be wrong’ (xxxii). Creaser, as mentioned above, prints a ‘frankly eclectic’ text, but the strength of his edition is in its grasp of Jonson’s classical sources and scholarship (and also Venetian context), showing definitively how wrong Rea was in thinking that ‘often in his borrowings, Jonson has done little but select and rearrange sentences’ (139). Parker’s edition is the most substantial we have, the most fully collated prior to this one, and especially admirable in elucidating the play’s debt to fox lore and exploring both its debt to commedia dell’arte and its modern theatrical realization. It was, however, fiercely criticized for the freedom with which it mixed Q and F1 readings, matters largely addressed in the Parker/Bevington revised edition of 1999 (Berger, 1986; see also Mulryne, 1989a). I am grateful to most of these editions for at least some insights into the play, to some (notably Brockbank, Creaser, and Parker) for many, I hope all properly acknowledged in my annotation.
* * *
Much of the most interesting recent scholarship on Jonson – biographical, critical and editorial – has derived from the impulse to relocate him as an exemplary figure in the early modern literary world. But little of this has focused on Volpone, and this edition, based on Q, aims in part to make good that omission. The aims of the Cambridge Jonson, however, preclude my making this a purely antiquarian exercise, such as de Vocht’s edition, even if that is what I had wanted. My goal is to provide a serviceable modernized text, and as part of that to help readers with stage directions and staging potential, often as exemplified in the history of performance. As I have indicated, that is contrary to the very spirit of Q, and must start with due attention to F1, where someone – Jonson or not – attended to what actually happened on stage. But square bracketing always marks this, and later suggested stagings, as not part of the original Q design. Of course, where the text is manifestly deficient for other reasons, my first recourse will be to the folio, as the next best witness of Jonson’s intentions; but I shall not draw on it simply for aesthetic reasons.
Punctuation is more problematic. Both of the early texts are punctuated far more heavily than modern usage would warrant, and follow conventions that are now alien and potentially misleading. Some of these, moreover, as I outlined earlier, are as likely to derive from print-house practice as from Jonson himself. In line with this edition’s policy, I have modernized accordingly. At times this has effectively (though not deliberately) meant preferring F1 readings, notably where Q opts for commas and semi-colons at what modern usage would regard as the end of a sentence or speech: this is now unacceptable, while F1’s dash or stop is unexceptionable. The dash or the comma may well have meant the same thing at the time, but now only the former will do. The choice between question marks and exclamation marks is even more fraught because in the great majority of readings either usage is equally acceptable today -- though with subtly different implications. When Voltore (5.3.22) realises the implication of Volpone’s will, does he groan ‘Mosca the heir?’ (Q) in disbelief or exclaim ‘Mosca the heir!’(F1) in shock? Can we read anything into the fact that the much slower Corbaccio (5.3.63) comes out with ‘Mosca the heir?’ in both texts? (Given my analysis above, I think we should hesitate to.) In the end, I have remained consistent to the policy I have followed in other matters: where I have seen no compelling reason to abandon Q’s punctuation, I have not done so. The result is a less histrionic text than F1, but by no means a less dramatic one. My editorial commentary does not aim to provide an exhaustive record of the differences between the quarto and folio texts in these matters, which can be fully appreciated from the electronic edition. But it highlights all differences which seem to me to bear on matters of meaning or interpretation.
I want to make a point about parentheses (round brackets), which are a feature of both Q and F but largely disappear in a modernized edition. It can certainly be argued that such brackets often only serve a function which today would be served by commas, or perhaps dashes. I also know that I have argued at length that so many features of both Q and F1 can be ascribed to compositors that it is unwise to invest any of them with Jonson’s authority. But that is not my point. It is apparent that someone (quite possibly, but not necessarily, Jonson himself) may sometimes have used parentheses to mark particular emphases. For example, they mark palpable asides in F1 (e.g. 5.12.24, 28, 29); elsewhere in the same scene (5.12.58ff.) both Q and F1 mark what are not strictly asides but stage whispers between Volpone and Mosca in the same way. That is, they clearly denote intended stage usage, which the modern editor can indicate with stage directions.
But elsewhere the issue is less clear-cut. Look, for example, at Volpone: ‘Or fat by eating (once a month) a man’ (Q, 1.5.92). If ‘once a month’ merely registers how regularly Volpone inclines to economic cannibalism, commas would suffice. But that phrase actually alerts us to the fact that this is also about doctrinal disputes over eating the bread/body of Christ (and whether this involves transubstantiation or not), and so about taking the Anglican communion monthly, or not, as the law required. Perhaps the parenthesis was intended to alert the reader to this additional layer of significance. To my mind and eye, commas do not do that while dashes – which would have to indicate discernible pauses – do so too emphatically. This is about a degree of quiet collusion between the text (since we cannot directly invoke the author) and the reader, which brackets perhaps foster as no other punctuation does. They might equally call upon the actor to register, knowingly, the potential in this passage – but discreetly (see my comments on Mosca, below). Note how Sir Pol makes an interjection in his own speech, referring to ‘the state / Where I was bred (and unto which I owe / My dearest plots)’ (Q, 2.1.6-8). Plots may simply be innocent plans or projections, as Sir Pol probably intends, but if the actor varies the emphasis even slightly the sense of plot as in Gunpowder Plot is, in 1606/7 context, unmissable. A less complex instance occurs with Peregrine later in the scene: ‘The very day / (Let me be sure) that I put forth from London …’ (2.1.44-5). As explained in the Introduction, the timing of Peregrine’s visit parallels Jonson’s writing of the play, and so locates it in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. Here the brackets help ensure that no one misses the point. I do not want to suggest that all the parentheses in the text direct us to the religious or political subtext of the play, though a significant number seem to. But all of them do catch significant inflections of thought or delivery. A small untopical instance will round out my argument. As Corvino berates Celia for being too forward, he threatens:
some two or three yards off
I’ll chalk a line; o’er which if thou but (chance
To) set thy desperate foot, more hell, more horror,
More wild, remorseless rage shall seize on thee . . . (2.5.51-4)
All modern editions, as far as I can see, omit the bracket (as does F1) and do not replace it with other punctuation. Yet it captures a tiny psychological tic in Corvino that it is a pity to miss. As his mind races to project its own torments on this woman, it pauses just briefly enough to consider whether she should be punished for transgressing accidentally (yes, she should) before plunging on. Such instances allow for a reader to take special note, or an actor to modulate the delivery (often, if not here, in ways that suggest complicity with a knowing audience, as with Nano in the ‘show’ of 1.2 or Volpone in the mountebank scene).
It is in the role of Mosca that these nuances can most readily be appreciated. Note how, when he is first playing Corbaccio along, a couple of bracketed phrases mark his collusion with the audience: ‘Now, when I come to enforce (as I will do) / Your cares’ (1.4.99-100); ‘It hath been all my study, all my care, / (I e’en grow grey withal) …’ (1.4.120-1). The more Mosca reassures Corbaccio that he is pursuing his interests, the more we understand that the opposite is the case. The ‘(as I will do)’ means exactly the opposite of what it says, while the ‘(I e’en grow grey withal)’ invites us to laugh at the man who is actually growing grey (and senile), rather than his manipulator. These are not asides, they do not require pointed pauses: can any other punctuation handle the nuance better? There are similar moments with other gulls, such as Corvino: ‘Sir, the thing / (But that I would not seem to counsel you) / I should have motioned to you at the first’ (Q, 2.6.81-3). Of course, the whole point is that Mosca has implicitly ‘counselled’ him into prostituting Celia to Volpone. The added joke is that, in seemingly deferring to Corvino, he is actually enjoying the triumph over him – an enjoyment he quietly shares with the reader/audience.
The issue is at its most acute when Mosca is around Volpone. For example: ‘I still interpreted the nods he made / (Through weakness) for consent’ (Q, 1.5.35-6). This is ostensibly for Corvino’s benefit, a hasty reassurance that the apparently dying Volpone does not have the vitality to nod of his own volition. But is this also a sly dig at Volpone himself? – not necessarily one which Mosca would want or expect Volpone to pick up, but one which the brackets ask the reader to register as a possible premonition of Mosca’s later betrayal? I put this no more strongly than a possibility, a question, because that is exactly what I think the bracket registers. As the plot advances, the implications become more intense. In the crisis after Bonario’s rescue of Celia, Mosca starts to repair the damage (while a stunned Volpone imagines judicial mutilation) by squaring Corbaccio: ‘Your son (I know not, by what accident) / Acquainted with your purpose …’ (Q [3.9.2-3]). The point, of course, is precisely that none of this was an accident: Mosca himself told Bonario that he had been disinherited, and then left him in a situation where it was almost inevitable that he would overhear Volpone’s attempted seduction of Celia. But Volpone does not know this, and never will: Mosca may be duping Corbaccio, but he is also duping his master. The brackets are perhaps a little nod of acknowledgement that he is not duping us, the reader/audience he has quietly (and latterly not so quietly) been cultivating. Or so it seems to me. I cannot prove the authority or intention behind any of this. Nor would I claim that all the brackets in Q carry the same force. But many of them seem to have this potential to register levels of innuendo, irony or audience complicity that alternative punctuations distort. So something may be lost by homogenizing them with other forms of modernized punctuation. But the immense gains of modernizing, in terms of the general reader’s access to the text, have always to be weighed against the loss of such nuances in the original, or at least their relegation to footnotes. I have spelled out this instance to alert readers to this issue in respect of Volpone. Readers of this edition will at least have access to Q itself to get their own sense of these matters.
This, then, is an edition based on the 1607 quarto. I have been able to inspect 24 copies myself, and a further 4 by proxy in the persons of David Gants and Eugene Giddens, to whom I am most grateful. This makes 28 of the known surviving 34 (see the collation by formes), compared to the 7 copies Herford and Simpson were able to collate, and the 21 Brian Parker consulted in what was previously the most extensive collation. I have also collated 38 copies of F1. My bench-mark copy of Q has been that Jonson presented, with an inscription, to John Florio (British Library, C.12.e.17). It is widely accessible in a good facsimile edition (Scolar, 1968).
I should also comment on the collation of Volpone’s song, ‘Come, my Celia’ (3.7.165-82, and 235-8). This is a unique item in the text, since it appears not only in the Q and F1 versions of Volpone; it also appears a second time in F1, as the fifth poem in The Forest (the continuation reappears at the end of the sixth). The song, which was set to the lute by Antonio Ferrabosco, then acquired an independent existence in manuscript culture. Peter Beal lists eight manuscript versions from the early-mid 17th century (JnB 443-50) in his Index of English Literary Manuscripts. In one sense this is irrelevant to the song as it appears in the play. That shows every sign of being Jonson’s original version, specifically crafted to its dramatic situation in the play, as Volpone tries to seduce Celia. The version in The Forest is deliberately altered by Jonson to address a reader who is implicitly in Celia’s situation. None of the manuscript versions is in Jonson’s hand, nor can any claim his authority for the variants they carry. It is, nevertheless, of some interest to see how such a popular item as this song could take on a life of its own. My collation therefore includes the version in The Forest and the manuscripts to which I had access at the time of editing the play, those in the British and Bodleian Libraries (JnB 443, 444, 445 and 446), in the spirit of showing something of how the song was received and adapted. I am, however, most grateful to Colin Burrow, the editor of The Forest in this edition, for permission also to include findings from his wider study of the manuscripts alongside my own work. Anyone interested in the manuscripts of the poem should consult Dr Burrow’s most thorough commentary and collation in this Electronic Edition.
COLLATIONS OF THE 1607 QUARTO AND 1616 FOLIO ARRANGED BY FORMES
1607 QUARTO
My analysis of the quarto closely follows that of the most authoritative one to date, Brian Parker’s in his Revels Plays edition of the play, on all but a few relatively minor features (discussed in the notes) and some specific readings. I have been able to revisit, in person or by proxy, 19 of the 21 copies he collated (missing only the copies at the Marsh Library, Dublin and Yale Elizabethan Club), plus a further 9 he did not see (the J. P. Kemble copy at the University of Texas; two at King’s College, Cambridge; one each at Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds Universities; Newnham College, Cambridge; the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; and the Pierpont Morgan Library). Other copies of which I am aware, but have not been able to consult, are at Petworth House, Sussex; Indiana University Library; Texas Christian University; and the Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, making 34 in total.
Occurrences of the long “s” (“ſ”) are noted, but not ligatures; “^” indicates a blank space, punctuated in other states. The quarto has no page numbers, only signatures; “(o)” indicates an outer forme, “(i)” an inner.
For some sheets – B(i), C (o), D (o), L (o), M (o) – I have followed Parker in setting out the changes in discernible stages, to show what was sometimes a sporadic and intermittent process, which hardly suggests Jonson’s own close attention to the text.
Key to copies collated (I am grateful to David Gants for examining the University of Texas copies, nos. 14, 15 and 16, on my behalf; and to Eugene Giddens for doing this with the Newham College copy, no. 28; also to Iman Javadi, Rare Books Cataloguer at King’s College, Cambridge, for clarifying differences between their two copies):
1. British Library (C.12.e.17: Florio presentation copy)
2. British Library (C.34.d.2)
3. British Library (Ashley 956: H&S’s ‘Wise’)
4. Eton College Library No. 1
5. Eton College Library No. 2
6. Chapin Library (Williams College)
7. Huntington Library
8. Harvard University
9. University of London Library
10. Bodleian Library, Oxford (Malone 809)
11. Bodleian Library, Oxford (Malone 225 (4))
12. Bodleian Library, Oxford (Malone 189 (6))
13. Westminster School
14. University of Texas (Pforzheimer copy)
15. University of Texas (J. P. Kemble copy)
16. University of Texas (Wrenn copy)
17. Folger Shakespeare Library, 1
18. Folger Shakespeare Library, 2
19. Folger Shakespeare Library, 3
20. Edinburgh University Library (William Drummond copy)
21. Glasgow University Library
22. Mitchell Library, Glasgow
23. Leeds University Library
24. King’s College, Cambridge No. 1 (Keynes C.07.21)
25. King’s College, Cambridge No. 2 (Keynes C.07.22)
26. Victoria and Albert Museum
27. Pierpont Morgan Library
28. Newnham College, Cambridge
| 1. O (o). Prelims and end-sheets. | |||
| Missing from: 9, 22, 25, 28 | |||
| State I: 14 | |||
| State II: All other copies | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| O1r | CW | GREGE | VOLP. |
| 2. ¶ (o) | |||
| Missing from: 4, 9, 19 | |||
| State I: 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28 | |||
| State II: 1, 7, 13, 17, 24, 26 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| ¶3r | 11 | Tre— | Tre |
(Note: copies 13 and 26 lack the pronounced hyphen of State I but have a small mark in its place, missing in the other copies of State II. It might represent an intermediate third state but I am inclined to regard it as a smudge.)
| 3. A (i) | |||
| Missing from: 9, 25 (up to A4, which is State II) | |||
| State I: 3, 4, 8, 27 | |||
| State II: All other copies | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| A1v | Contains the poems, ‘To | Contains the poems, ‘To my | |
| my worthily esteemed ...’ | friend ...’ and ‘To the | ||
| and ‘To the true Mr. ...’ | Reader ...’ | ||
| A2 | Contains ‘THE PERSONS | Contains the poem ‘To my | |
| OF THE COMOEDYE’ | deare friend ...’ | ||
| and ‘THE ARGUMENT’ | |||
| A3v | Contains the poems, ‘To my | Contains the poems, ‘To | |
| friend ...’ and ‘To the | my worthily esteemed ...’ | ||
| Reader ...’ | and ‘To the true Mr. ...’ | ||
| A4 | Contains the poem ‘To my | Contains ‘THE PERSONS | |
| deare friend ...’ | OF THE COMOEDYE’ | ||
| and ‘THE ARGUMENT’ | |||
(Note: the only signature on the forme, A2, was initially misplaced at the foot of A4, confusing the intended order of the preliminaries.)
| 4. A (cancel) | |||
| State I: All copies except | |||
| State II: 1, 3 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| [omit] | Contains the poem ‘To the | ||
| worthiest Maister Jonson’ | |||
| (40 lines, signed ‘N.F.’ ) | |||
(Note: a late commendatory poem by Nathan Field survives in only two copies. In the Florio presentation copy it appears between A3v and A4r; in the copy once owned by T. J. Wise it is between A2v and A3r, but probably inserted there from another copy: the upper and outer margins are not of the same paper as the rest of the page.)
| 4. A (cancel) | |||
| State I: All copies except | |||
| State II: 1, 3 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| [omit] | Contains the poem ‘To the | ||
| worthiest Maister Jonson’ | |||
| (40 lines, signed ‘N.F.’ ) | |||
| 5. B (i) | ||||
| There are five stages of correction: | ||||
| Stage 1: | State I: 2, 18, 20 | |||
| State II: 9 | ||||
| State III: All other copies | ||||
| Stage 2: | State I: 2, 9, 18, 20 | |||
| State II: All other copies | ||||
| Stage 3: | State I: 2, 9, 18, 20 | |||
| State II: 14, 23 | ||||
| State III: All other copies | ||||
| Stage 4: | State I: 2, 9, 14, 18, 20, 23 | |||
| State II: All other copies | ||||
| Stage 5: | State I: All copies except | |||
| State II: 5, 15, 16, 10, 12, 19, 26 | ||||
| State I: 2, 9, 14, 18, 20, 23 | ||||
| Stage 1 : | ||||
| State I | State II | State III | ||
| B4 | 16 | Pthiſick | Phiſick | Phthiſick |
| Stage 2 (at the same time as State 3 of Stage 1): | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| B1v | 3 | purchaſſe | purchaſe | |
| 5 | cowmon | common | ||
| 7 | Shambles | ſhambles | ||
| 17 | them^ | them, | ||
| B2 | 8 | me too | me to | |
| 10 | ſubstance too | ſubstance to | ||
| 16 | returne^ | returne, | ||
| 17 | Ten-fold^ | Ten-fold, | ||
| 24 | To looke | And looke | ||
| B3v | 6 | wit | Wit | |
| Stage 3: | ||||
| State I | State II | State III | ||
| B4 | 15 | Harpyeis | Harpiyes | Harpyies |
| Stage 4 (at the same time as State 3 of Stage 3): | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| B4 | 18 | Catarrhe | Catarrhe | |
| Stage 5: | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| B3v | 27 | g!ft | gift |
| 6. C (o) | |||
| In two stages: | |||
| Stage 1: | State I: 1, 6, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18, 23, 25, 26 | ||
| State II: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28 | |||
| Stage 2: | State I: 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 26 | ||
| State II: 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28 | |||
| Stage 1: | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| C1 | 35 | MOS^ | MOS. |
| Stage 2: | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| C1 | 31 | brought, Sr. | brought, Sr? |
(Note: I have not found Parker’s State 1 of Stage 2, which has a stop immediately below the superscript ‘r’. However, the stops in 19 [crescent-shaped] and 20 [wedge-shaped] are odd, presumably smudges.)
| 7. C (i) | |||
| State I: 11 | |||
| State II: All other copies | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| C2 | 26 | Scotomy, he^ | Scotomy; he, |
| C4 | 12 | ſtils | ſtill |
| 8. D (o) | ||||
| In three stages: | ||||
| Stage 1: | State I: 5, 14, 18 | |||
| State II: All other copies | ||||
| Stage 2: | State I: 14, 18 | |||
| State II: All other copies | ||||
| Stage 3: | State I: 14, 18 | |||
| State II: 5 | ||||
| State III: All other copies | ||||
| Stage 1: | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| D1 | 7 | him^ | him, | |
| D2v | 3 | Yes^ Sir^ | Yes; Sir; | |
| 6 | true^ Sir, | true, Sir, | ||
| 8 | Another^ Sir, | Another, Sir. | ||
| 10 | new Starre | new | ||
| 12 | pray | Pray | ||
| 23 | Archduke | Arch-duke | ||
| 25 | worthy | Worthy | ||
| 26 | Faith^ | Faith, | ||
| 27 | extreamly | extremely | ||
| D3 | 13 | Nay, I^ | Nay, I, | |
| D4v | 17 | ſeru’d | ſteru’d | |
| 20 | phyſicke | Phyſick | ||
| Stage 2: | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| D2v | 34 | PE[R]. | PER. | |
| (R is inverted.) | ||||
| Stage 3: | ||||
| State I | State II | State III | ||
| D2v | 30 | kuowen | knowen | knowne |
| 9. D (i) | |||
| State I: All copies except | |||
| State II: 5, 7, 10, 13, 17 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| D4 | 27 | Mautuano | Mantuano |
| 10. E (o) | |||
| State I: 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 14, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 | |||
| State II: 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 28 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| E1 | 6 | arme^ | arme, |
| 10 | moiſt^ | moiſt, | |
| 12 | ’pray | ’Pray | |
| 19 | remedy. | remedy: | |
| 21 | Vapours | vapours | |
| 21 | ſpleene | Spleene | |
| 21 | Stop- | ſtop- | |
| E2v | 11 | Crownes, and | Crownes; and |
| 35 | you; it | you; It | |
| E3 | 3 | ſack | Sack |
| 10 | ſeats | ſeat’s | |
| 26 | deſigne^ | deſigne, | |
(Note: Parker found three states of correction in this forme. At E2v, line 11, he lists an intermediate state without punctuation, “Crownes and”, but I have not found it. At E4v, line 35, he notes a mark which could be a comma, “that, had”, but which might well be a smudge, as I am convinced it is: it occurs only in copies 7, 13 and 17.)
| 11. F (o) | |||
| State I: 1, 28, 13, 10, 17, 18 | |||
| State II: All other copies | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| F1r: signature | E | F | |
| 12. G (i) | |||
| State I: 2, 6, 7, 9 (G2 missing), 16, 19, 24 | |||
| State II: All other copies | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| G1v | 35 | Currall | Corrall |
| G2 | 11 | Poultiſe | poultiſe |
| 12 | (line is squashed) | (line is not squashed) | |
| 26 | no spacing after | wide spacing | |
| “Guerrini” and | |||
| “Ariosto” | |||
| 13. H (o) | |||
| A clear case of damage, rather than correction: | |||
| State I: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28 | |||
| State II: 1, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 22, 25, 26 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| H4v | 17 | I tóld | tóld |
| 18 | might | Imight (no spacing) | |
| 21 | then | th en (spacing) | |
| 23 | ſome | ſo me (spacing) | |
| 27 | onely | on ely (spacing) | |
| 28 | old, | old^ | |
| 30 | great | gr eat (spacing) | |
| 14. H (i) | |||
| State I: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28 | |||
| State II: 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 22, 25, 26 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| H2 | 10 | a racted | attracted |
(Note: this is correction rather than damage, since the space in State 1 is only sufficient for one ‘t’. Presumably there was originally another variant, ‘atracted’.)
| 15. I (i) | ||||
| The sequence here was apparently one of mis-set type, followed by repair which created more serious damage. | ||||
| State I: All copies except | ||||
| State II: 4, 5, 14, 26 | ||||
| State III: 1, 7 | ||||
| State I | State II | State III | ||
| I2 | 13 | all. (period faint) | all | all. (period prominent) |
| 13 | hoigh | --- | hoigh (leads above and | |
| ) | ||||
| 14 | a | --- | a (letter distorted) | |
(What I have characterised as a separate state for “all”, without a period, is probably the working-through of the whatever made the original period faint, often very faint, and did not involve a stop-press correction. The repair to the period, however, created worse damage to type immediately to the right and below it.)
| 16. K (o) | |||
| State I: 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28 | |||
| State II: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 17, 22, 23, 26, 27 | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| K1 | 29 | wth | with |
| 17. L (o) | |||
| In two stages: | |||
| Stage 1: | State I: 1, 2, 9, 20, 7 | ||
| State II: All other copies | |||
| Stage 2: | State I: 7 | ||
| State II: All other copies | |||
| Stage 1: | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| L3 | 3 | meane^ Sir | meane, Sir |
| Stage 2: | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| L1 | 17 | the ir cradles | their cradles |
| 18. L (i) | |||
| State I: 1, 2, 9, 14, 20, 28, 7, 11 | |||
| State II: All other copies (23 is barely legible) | |||
| State I | State II | ||
| L1v | 1 | COR[B]. (B is reversed) |
CORB. |
| 19. M (o) | ||||
| A messy forme, involving correction, and several changes which may be mis-correction, re-correction and damage, but may equally arise from loose type. The sequence of these is somewhat conjectural, and the description in four stages is convenient rather than precise: | ||||
| Stage 1: | State I: 2, 5, 6, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24 | |||
| State II: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25 (M4 missing), 26, 27, 28, | ||||
| Stage 2: | State I: 2, 5, 6, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24 | |||
| State II: 1, 7, 23 | ||||
| State III: 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28 | ||||
| Stage 3: | State I: 2, 5, 7, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 | |||
| State II: 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 | ||||
| Stage 4: | State I: All copies except | |||
| State II: 7 | ||||
| Stage 1: | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| M1 | 20 | malice^ | malice, | |
| 31 | lettice | lettuce | ||
| M2v | 19 | He creepes Sir | He creepes, Sir | |
| M3 | 7 | where’s | Where’s | |
| 12 | WOM^ | WOM. | ||
| 16 | ſhell, | ſhell. | ||
| M4v | 25 | well, | well: | |
| 27 | Sir, | Sir, Sir, | ||
| 28 | man^ | man, | ||
| Stage2: | ||||
| State I | State II | State III | ||
| M2v | 9 | Iie lie | Ile li e | Ile lie |
| (Note: There was obviously correction between State I and what followed. But the differences between States II and III, which might be re-correction, may actually reflect loose type, in which case the sequencing is probably wrong.) | ||||
| Stage3: | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| M1 | 6 | faithfull | f aithfull | |
| Stage 4: | ||||
| State I | State II | |||
| M1 | 7 | A (smudged) | [A] (letter inverted) | |
(Parker assumes very different sequencing for Stages 3 and 4. I think the evidence suggests loosely-set type [the “A” is more or less smudged in all copies] progressively deteriorating, with the “f” becoming detached from “faithful”
| 20. M (i) | |||||
| State I: 4 | |||||
| State II: 1, 7 | |||||
| State III: All other copies (22 blotched print) | |||||
| State IV: 3, 26, 11, 8, 27 | |||||
| State I | State II | State III | State IV | ||
| M2 | 1 | mhole ſome (inverted “w”) |
whole ſome | whole; ſome | whole_ſome (damage) |
(Note: Parker lists one further variant, on N (outer), at N1, line 20. But, as he half-concedes, it is merely an inking difference.)page break
1616 FOLIO
In relation to the folio, I have been able to work in the light of the studies of both David Gants and Brian Parker, whose analyses concur on most essentials, though see my notes, especially about sigs. 2O4, 2O6, and 2S1 & 2. I have not found anything significantly new, but have been able to expand the evidence by looking at additional copies. I am particularly grateful to Paulina Kewes for a late re-checking of some of the Huntington copies.
Occurrences of the long “s” (“ſ”) are noted, but not (except for sig. 2O6) ligatures; tailed letters are indicated by an angle bracket “>”; “^” indicates a blank space, punctuated in other states. The folio has both signatures and page numbers -- the latter refer to folio pagination of the first state; “(o)” indicates an outer forme, “(i)” an inner; an “m” indicates marginal note. The state of each variant progresses from left to right, and if no change occurs between states it is indicated by the inclusion of three dashes “---”.
Key to copies collated:
1. British Library (G. 11630)
2. British Library (C.39.K.9)
3. Bodleian Library (AA. 83 Art)
4. Bodleian Library (Douce I 302)
5. Folger (STC 14751, copy 1)
6. Folger (STC 14751, copy 2)
7. Folger (STC 14751, copy 3)
8. Folger (STC 14751, copy 4)
9. Folger (STC 14751, copy 5)
10. Folger (STC 14751, copy 6)
11. Folger (STC 14751.2, copy 1)
12. Folger (STC 14751.2, copy 2)
13. Huntington 1 (62100)
14. Huntington 2 (62101, Robert Hoe copy)
15. Huntington 3 (62104)
16. Huntington 4 (62105)
17. Huntington 5 (495467, Schlatter copy, formerly owned by H. L. Ford: H&S’s ‘Ford
A’)
18. Huntington 6 (499967)
19. Huntington 7 (499968, Robert Browning copy, annotated in 17thC hand)
20. Huntington 8 (499969, J. H. Penniman copy)
21. Huntington 9 (499971)
22. Huntington 10 (600687, BAC)
23. Huntington 11 (606199)
24. Huntington 12 (606200, T. P.Young copy)
25. Huntington 13 (606202)
26. Victoria and Albert Museum (Sir John Holles copy)
27. Dundee University Library (William Drummond copy)
28. Brotherton Library, Leeds University
29. King’s College, Cambridge
30. University of London Library (S. L. I. Jonson 1616 fol., Robert Aubrey copy)
31. University of London Library (D.-L. L. XVII. Bc. Jonson fol.)
32. University of London Library (Bacon Society copy)
33. Pierpont Morgan Library
34. Houghton Library, Harvard University 1 (Lowell 1479.1)
35. Houghton Library, Harvard University 2 (14751 v.1 (14426.4F*))
36. Houghton Library, Harvard University 3 (14752 (A))
37. Westminster School.
38. Queen’s University, Belfast 1 (Bishop Thomas Percy’s copy)
39. Queen’s University, Belfast 2
40. Ohio State University 1
41. Ohio State University 2 (Stirling copy)
| 1. ¶1:6 (o) | ||||
| State I 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41 | ||||
| State II 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, 30, 33, 39 |
(Note: this sheet is missing in 9, 38)
| State I | State II | ||||
| ¶6 | [xi] | 15m | [omit] | In Uulponem | |
| 26m | [omit] | In Vulponem | |||
| 2. Parker notes a variant on 2O4r, the Volpone title page, found only in a copy at Worcester College, Oxford (the ‘By’ is missing in line 5). This has been inspected and confirmed by David Bevington, but I have not seen any other instances, nor does Gants record it. | |||||
| 3. 2O1:6 (i) | |||||
| State I 2, 7, 9, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, | |||||
| State II 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 33, 35, 39, 40, 41 | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2O6 | 443 | 1 | [‘is’ ligature] | is | |
| 27 | ſcene : And | ~. ~ | |||
| (Note: There are differences here between Parker, Gants, and myself. Parker does not note the variant in line 1, ‘is’ with or without a ligature. He does, however, record a further variant in line 27, which is what I have given as State I except that ‘And’ is roman rather than italic. But he only records this for copy 16 (Huntington 62105) and I have not found it there or anywhere else. Gants does not record that variant either, but he does propose a State III in which the gap between the full stop and the ‘And’ is markedly smaller than in State II. While I have noticed some variation I am inclined to think this loose type rather than a separate stop-press correction.) | |||||
| 4. 2P3:4 (o) | |||||
| State I 4, 5, 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 29 (see note), 31, 36, 38 | |||||
| State II 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41 | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2P3v | 450 | 4 | Playes worth, | No playes worth, | |
| 11 | Play | play | |||
| 26 | Sunne | ſunne | |||
| 27 | Ram, | ram, | |||
| 29 | That^ | ~, | |||
| 2P4 | 451 | 14 | plow-ſhares, I fat | plow-ſhares; fat | |
| 20 | priuate. | ~ ———— | |||
| 28 | But ^ | ~, | |||
| 31 | roofes: ... vengeance. | ~; ... ~. ———— | |||
| 33 | a threſher | the threſher | |||
| 37 | marchant | merchant | |||
| 38 | Romagnia | Romagnîa | |||
| 45 | eunuch | eunuch | |||
| (Note: In 29, line 45 of 2P4r is set as line 1 of 2P4v, and ‘eunuch’ is in roman, not italic. This was presumably a transitional state in the corrections.) | |||||
| 5. 2Q1:6 (o) | |||||
| State I 38 | |||||
| State II The rest. | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2Q6v | 468 | 17 | louſy- farticall--rogues | louſy--farticall ^ rogues | |
| 6. 2Q2:5 (o) | |||||
| State I 8, 10, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, 34, 37, 38, 40, 41 | |||||
| State II 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 39 | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2Q2 | 459 | 2 | As ... good--- | (As ... good ————) | |
| 9 | ſir. | ~! | |||
| 14 | cordiall. | ~! | |||
| 26 | recouer; | ~ ———— | |||
| 33 | will; | ~: | |||
| 2Q5v | 466 | 3 | meat; | ~: | |
| 13 | Babiouns | Bab’ouns | |||
| 19 | aduices | aduiſes | |||
| 23 | POLL: | ~. | |||
| 40 | blouds, | ~; | |||
| 41 | pedants, | ~: | |||
| 7. 2R3:4 (o) | |||||
| State I 24 | |||||
| State II The rest | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2R3r | 473 | 11 | colour of o’ | colour o’ | |
| 8. 2R2:5 (i) | |||||
| State I 7, 9, 15, 17, 32 | |||||
| State II The rest | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2R2v | 472 | 4m | [omit] | [He beates / away the/ monte- / bancke, &c.] | |
| 8 | Piazza | piazza | |||
| 11 | DI BESOGNIOSI | di beſognioſi | |||
| 15 | ‘Tis | It is | |||
| 27 | ſome ambitious | an ambitious | |||
| 32 | ſir, | ~! | |||
| 2R5 | 477 | 3 | him, | ~: | |
| 16 | vs: | ~; | |||
| 18 | it; | ~: | |||
| 34 | not | ~, | |||
| 9. 2S1:6 (o) | |||||
| State I 36 | |||||
| State II The rest | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2S1 | 481 | 3 | pe | ape | |
| 25 | ſignifie. | ~ ^ | |||
| 10. 2S2:5 (o) | |||||
| State I All except | |||||
| State II 34 | |||||
| Setting A | Setting B | ||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2S2 | 483 | 2 | I, ſir | I,ſir | |
| 5 | muſique: | ~, | |||
| 11 | rapture; | ~, | |||
| 12 | voyce | voice | |||
| 19 | deſtruction? | ~? | |||
| 20 | thinke | thanke | |||
| 22 | tongue! | ~! | |||
| 35 | perturb’d | preturb’d | |||
| 2S5v | 490 | 1 | a carbuncle | acarbuncle | |
| 8 | patrimony | patrimonie | |||
| 10 | nightingales | neightingales | |||
| 27 | vertigo : | ~: (space closed) | |||
| 40 | Ruſsian ; | ~; (space closed) | |||
| 43 | pleaſures | pleasuers | |||
| 11. 2S2:5 (i) | |||||
| State I All except | |||||
| State II 34 | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2S2v | 484 | 3 | ſayes, | ~. | |
| 7 | luſty | luſtie | |||
| 9 | ſympathize | ſimpathize | |||
| 24 | welcom | welcome | |||
| 28 | ne’re | [turned ‘n’]e’re | |||
| 31 | ſteam’d | ſtream’d | |||
| 41 | youmay | you may | |||
| 2X5 | 489 | 2 | practice,for | practiſe, for | |
| 28 | rumor | rumour | |||
| 32 | remooued, | remoued ^ | |||
| 33 | ſteale> | steale | |||
| 35 | ſeene> | ſeene | |||
| 36 | beene> | beene | |||
| 39 | a baſe | abaſe | |||
| 45 | Ægyptian | Ægiptian | |||
| (Note: Neither H&S nor Parker encountered any of the variants in 2S, which are extremely rare). | |||||
| 12. 2X1:6 (o) | |||||
| State I All except | |||||
| State II 34 | |||||
| State III 17 | |||||
| Setting A | Setting B | Setting C | |||
| State I | State II | State III | |||
| 2X1 | 517 | rt | 517 | --- | 5 ^ 7 |
| 6 | come you, hither: | come you hither: | come you hither | ||
| 7 | ſir, I dare beate you. Approch | |
ſir I doe know your valure valure, well: |
--- | ||
| 8 | VOLP. No haste, ſir, I doe know your valure, well: |
[omit] | --- | ||
| 13 | ſaue me, | ſaue mee ^ | --- | ||
| 13m | Moſca [swash | ‘M’]oſca | [omit whole sidenote] | ||
| 14 | ayre’s | ayr’s | --- | ||
| 15 | Baſiliske! | Baſiliſke! | --- | ||
| 16 | Act [swash | ‘A’]ct | --- | ||
| 18-19/20 | [three-line drop-cap] | [two-line drop-cap] | --- | ||
| 20 | [line indented] | [line flush left] | --- | ||
| 21 | madame | madam | --- | ||
| 23 | ſir. | ~ ^ | --- | ||
| 26 | you. | ~, | --- | ||
| sig. |
signature (X X) beneath ‘d’ of ‘should’ and ‘g’ of ‘goe’ of line 37. |
[transposed right] | --- | ||
| (Note: The variants on 2X, both inner and outer, have vexed editors considerably. The overwhelming majority of copies are identically State I. But there are a very few copies in which 2XI and 2XIv have been clumsily reset, at least once, botching lines 7/ 8 on 2X1 and omitting 13/14 on 2X1v. H&S hypothesise that the resetting may have been to make up copies which were otherwise complete. They had access to H. L. Ford’s ‘A’ copy, which is State III, but saw no copies which were State II. The Ford ‘A’ copy was not available to Parker, who nevertheless discovered an instance of State II in a Library of Congress copy (Yorke W.4.4.). With guidance from David Gants, I have myself seen a Harvard copy which is State II (Lowell 1479.1) and have been able to compare that with the Ford ‘A’ copy, now happily in the Huntington Library (495467). It is apparent that H&S made some small transcription errors in their record of Ford ‘A’ 2X1, most notably in missing the second ‘valure’ in line 7, and not being precise in discriminating between long and capital “s”s. In fact, State III is identical to State II, except that the colon has gone from the end of line 6 and the sidenote SD has disappeared at 13. It is true that the “1” is missing in the page number (517) but there is a definite impression where it should have been, and this may have been an inking problem. It is entirely possible that all the changes between State II and State III arose from an initial clumsy resetting, in which type was damaged or inadequately secured.). | |||||
| 13. 2X3:4 (o) | |||||
| State I 15, 17, 26, 28, 34, 39 | |||||
| State II The rest | |||||
| State I | State II | ||||
| 2X4v | 524 | 1 | Comœdie | Comoedie | |
| 14. 2X1:6 (i) | |||||
| State I All except | |||||
| State II none seen | |||||
| State III 17, 34 | |||||
| Setting A | Setting B | Setting C | |||
| State I | State II | State III | |||
| 2X1v | 518 | 1 | Act | [swash ‘A’]ct | --- |
| 2 | AVOCATORI | AVOCATORI | AVOCATORI | ||
| 12 | he ... | himſelfe?) be ... ~ ^ ) | --- | ||
| 13-14 | I have abus’d, out of moſt couetous endes --/ (CORV. The man is mad! CORB. What’s that? CORV. He is poſſeſt.) |
[omit] | --- | ||
| 21 | onely | only | --- | ||
| 24 | (fathers, [bumped up] | fathers, [in line] | --- | ||
| 25 | it, | ~ ^ | --- | ||
| 28 | O, | ~ ^ | --- | ||
| 29 | none: | ~ : | --- | ||
| (Note: See the Note to item 12 above. State II of 2X1v is as recorded by David Gants, in which the AVOCATORI in line 2 lacks the initial larger capital – the only difference from State III.) | |||||