(excerpted by Clifford Stetner)
SONDERDRUCK
LITERATUR ALS KRITIK DES LEBENS
FESTSCHRIFT ZUM 65. GEBURTSTAG VON LUDWIG BORINSKI
HERAUSGEGEBEN VON RUDOLF HAAS, HEINZ-JOACHIM MOLLENBROCK UND CLAUS UHLIG
QUELLE & MEYER HEIDELBERG
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This paper examines the textual transmission of Shakespeare's Troilus for the light it may shed on the still unresolved problem of the play's genre. Although Q1609 titlepage (states 1 and 2) calls it a "history", Q1609 Epistle (state 2) terms it a "comedy". Further, although pre-cancellation F1 (1623) names it a "tragedy", post-cancellation F1, after three pages reprinted from the pre-cancellation text, removes that label. Such division of opinion is reflected also in the history and present state of commentary on the work [n1 Summarized in H. N. Hillebrand and T. W. Baldwin, eds., A New Variorum Edition of Troilus and Cressida (Philadelphia, 1953). Citations, unless otherwise indicated, are from this text, alluded to as NVS. Quarto citations are from Shakespeare Quartos in . . . Facsimile, no. 8 (Oxford, n. d.). For recent hypotheses of the play's transmission, cf. J. W. Ramsey, "The Provenance of Troilus and Cressida," Shakespeare Quarterly, XXI (1970), 223-240; J. M. Nosworthy, Shakespeare's Occasional Plays: Their Origin and Transmission (New York, 1965), pp. 54-85; Nevill Coghill, Shakespeare's Professional Skills (Cambridge U. P., 1964), pp.76-126 - comments on the last are summarized by J. G. McManaway, Shakespeare Survey, XXI (1968), 162.]. While avoiding claims to generic consistency, this essay investigates textual evidence for early views of Shakespeare's enigmatic piece. In doing so, it inevitably recalls Greg's admonition: "Troilus and Cressida is a play of puzzles, in respect of its textual history no less than its interpretation, and any attempt to solve them cannot be other than speculative" [n2 W. W. Greg, The Shakespeare First Folio (Oxford, 1955), p.338, hereafter alluded to as SFF.].
Among contemporary evidences for the interpretation of Troilus, the Epistle to the reader in Q1609 (state 2) claims our attention. For it is the only detailed commentary on a Shakespearean play published in the author's lifetime. In regard to the Epistle, however, other contemporary testimony raises problems:
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(1) "[S.R. 1603] 7 februarii . . . Master Robertes. Entred for his copie in full Court holden this day to print when he hath gotten sufficient aucthority for yt, The booke of 'Troilus and Cresseda' as yt is acted by my lord Chamberlens Men. vjd" (Arber, III. 226; italics mine).
(2) "[S.R. 1609] 28uo Januarii . . . Richard Bonion, Henry Walleys. Entred for their Copy vnder thee h]andes of Master Segar deputy to Sir George Bucke and master warden Lownes a booke called the history of Troylus and Cressida . . . vjd" (Arber, III. 400).
(3) Q 1609 (titlepage, state 1): The Historie of Troylus and Cresseida. As it was acted by the Kings Maiesties seruants at the Globe. . . (Italics mine.)
(4) Q 1609 (titlepage, state 2, replacing material in the same space in state 1): "The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the beginning of their loues, with the conceited wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia."
While Roberts' entry declares that the book "is acted by my lord Chamberlens Men", nothing is asserted either about performance at the Globe or about any public performance. Since Shakespeare's company also performed privately, as at court and at the Inns of Court, no necessary contradiction exists between that entry and the Epistle (Q 1609, state 2) on "a new play, neuer stal'd with the Stage, neuer clapperclawd with the palmes of the vulger," a description clearly defining "new" in terms of public performance. This interpretation is confirmed by the Epistle's further urging, "nor like this the lesse, for not being sullied, with the smoaky breath of the. multitude," i.e., for not having been publicly performed. Both in point of replacement of Q 1609 (state 1)'s claim, "As it was acted by the Kings Maiesties seruants at the Globe" and in point of its stylistic emphasis, the Epistle's correction seems deliberately intended to erase, as misleading or untrue, the previous assertion. This clarification by the Epistle was never later shown to be false in any relevant testimony. Since the Epistle's description, therefore, does not clash with the Roberts' entry, there is no contradiction in the following deduction: Troilus was acted by Shakespeare's company, but in private performance [n3 Private Inns-of-Court performance for the play is the view, following Peter Alexander's article (Library, ser. 4,9, [1928-9], 267-286), shared by most recent textual scholars (e.g., Greg, Philip Williams, Alice Walker, J. K. Walton.)].
Cancellation. Q 1609's titlepage (state 2) thus cancels state 1's assertions regarding acting, performers, and place of performance. That the deletion of the day's leading acting company, with its royal auspices, and of its theatre, represented a loss may be gathered from the emphatic substituted advertisements. In state 1's titlepage space, state 2 inserted famous, but it was now the "historie" or story of "Troylus and Cresseid" that was famous, rather than the performers or theatre.
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Excellently was imported to introduce the substitute billing: as well as the beginning of Troilus and Cressida's love, the work also excellently expressed the conceited wooing of a pander who was, moreover, a prince, and of exotic Licia.
Further, the replacement of state 1 titlepage by state 2 was of a piece with the printing of the Epistle. The second leaf of the cancellans (pi 2) contains the Epistle (ending on pi 2v). Substituted titlepage in state 2 and the Epistle, Williams has shown [n4 Philip Williams, Jr., "The 'Second Issue' of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, 1609", Studies in Bibliography, II (1949-50),25-33.], are consequential, and both were decided on and printed before Q copies were issued. The first title-leaf was thus replaced by a two-leaf cancel with a partly reset titlepage and a new Epistle, not in the original A gathering. In short, the Epistle was composed in the new knowledge reflected in state 2's titlepage, and may be understood as a means of reconciling the publication's appeal to its revised circumstances.
Transmission. Between Q publishers and the Inns of Court a link has been proposed in the friendship of Henry Walley and John Marston, the dramatist [n5 P. J. Finkelpearl, "Henry Walley of the Stationers' Company and John Marston", Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, LVI (1962),366-368; anticipated by R. E. Brettle, "Bibliographical Notes on Some Marston Quartos and Early Collected Editions," Library, VIII (1927), 340.]. From the latter's will (1634) and that of his wife (d. 1657), it is clear that Walley had been one of the playwrights's closest friends, even, it has been held, his closest friend [n6 Finkelpearl, John Marston of the Middle Temple (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), p. 85 n.]. Marston, in his will, left money to Walley's sons. In addition, Marston's wife bequeathed "my dear husband's picture" as well as "my 3 rings I usually weare" to Walley, whom she calls "his auncient friend" and "my good friend". She also left money to his son. Walley, on July 31, 1657, was executor of her will, two years before the date of his own will, November 18, 1659 [n7 Marston's will: H. H. Wood, Plays of John Marston (Edinburgh, 1934) Lxxx. His wife's will: A. B. Grosart, ed., Poems of John Marston (Occasional Issues, vol. XI, 1879), p. XXIV. Walley's will: P. R. O. Frob. 11/298.]. Since at least five references show that Marston, after 1609, dwelt outside London [n8 R. E. Brettle, "John Marston, Dramatist: Some New Facts about his Life," MLR, XXII (1927), 11-14; Brettle, "John Marston, Dramatist, at Oxford . . .", RES, III (1927), 404-405; J. George, "John Marston in the Trumbull Correspondence," NQ, CCXXVI (1957), 226.], his friendship with Walley, located in London, probably dates from before that year. During this earlier period, Marston's career as dramatist and stockholder in a London acting company would have brought him into contact with stationers, including Walley.
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As son and grandson of London stationers and booksellers at the Harts Horn in Foster Lane, the latter would have shared some areas of interest with Marston. Moreover, Walley's relative literacy or distinction may be evident from his rise to shareholder in 1623, and to Clerk of the Company of Stationers, 1630-1640, and Master of the Company in 1655 [n9 Cf. references to Walley in Records of the Court of the Stationers' Company 1602 to 1640, ed. W. A. Jackson (1957), pp. 182, 209, 211, 222. He was elected for a "yeomandry part" on March 28, 1623 (Jackson, p. 156; p. viii describes such shares); he was elected a stock-keeper of the English stock "Primo Martii 1624" (p.174; p. x explains that a committee of stock-keepers, with the Masters and Wardens, governed the stock, voted fortnightly on which books should be printed, as well on costs and sizes of editions, and who should print them.) Cf. also Edward Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London 1554-1640 (1875), I. xxxvii; III. 683: Walley took up his freedom on December 5, 1608; Bonian on August 6, 1607; I. xliv describes the Mastership, which Walley attained in 1655, as a place of eminence and dignity, the head of the English publishing and printing trade—"the highest thing anyone in the trade could, aspire to below that of an Alderman." Walley's family tradition also suggests influence in the Company; cf. Cyprian Blagden, The Stationers Company (1960), pp. 295, 298.].
Marston's experience and Troilus coincide at two significant points: (1) probable date of performance, according to many scholars, at one of the Inns of Court (c. 1601-2), and Marston's residence at the Middle Temple during most of the period 1595-1606 [n10 He can be traced at Middle Temple in 1595, 1596, 1597, 1599, 1600, 1601, and 1606; cf. R. E. Brettle, "John Marston, Dramatist: Some New Facts About His Life," MLR, XXII (1927), 8.]; (2) his friend Walley's publication of Q (1609) and Marston's departure from London.
Participant, probably, in Middle Temple revels himself [n11 Cf. Finkelpearl, "John Marston's Histrio-Mastix as an Inns of Court Play: A Hypothesis," Huntington Library Quarterly, XXIX (1966), 223-234; "The Use of Middle Temple's Christmas Revels in Marston's The Fawne," Studies in Philology, LXIV (1967), 199-209, noting (pp.199-200) that Marston spent virtually his entire writing career in residence (1595-1606) at the Inns of Court. Further, in the absence of records of fines for non-attendance during Christmas vacations, he infers (p. 200) that the dramatist participated in, or was aware of, Inns of Court Christmas revels.], Marston could have seen the play at his own Hall where, like Shakespeare's Twelfth Night on February 2, 1602, it could have been shown. If Marston had been present at a performance "in the middle" [n12 Troilus' Prologue, which sets the play ambiguously "in the middle" (1.29) points also to the presence of "massie Staples" (l.18). If, in the play's familiar punning style, these terms allude also to place of performance (the Middle Temple was the setting of Twelfth Night in 1602) and to portions of the audience (Staple Inn was a preparatory law-school to the Inns of Court), it is notable that both Marston and Shakespeare had Middle Temple and Staple Inn connections. These converge in Thomas Greene (gentleman of Warwickshire), probably Shakespeare's cousin. Greene entered Middle Temple on November 20, 1595, from Staple Inn. His sureties at entrance were John Marston, bencher, of Coventry in Warwickshire(who had been Stratford counsel in 1590), and his son, the future dramatist, John Marston. (Register of Admissions to the Middle Temple. . . , compo H. F. Macgeagh et a1. [London, 1949] I. 69). Between Shakespeare's two known performances at the Inns of Court, Greene is a probable link: (1) Comedy of Errors, performed at Gesta Grayorum of Gray's Inn (1594), when Greene was probably a student at its associated Staple Inn, to which Gray's Inn furnished readers. During these revels, the mock-Prince received reports from his provinces, including Stapulia (Staple Inn). (2) Twelfth Night, at Middle Temple, where Greene studied after Staple Inn, and where he was called to the Bar on October 29, 1602 (Middle Temple Records, ed. C. H. Hopwood, The Minutes of the Parliament of the Middle Temple, ed. C. T. Martin, London, 1904, I. 426). At Middle Temple, Greene rose to be Bencher, 1621, Reader, 1621, and in 1629, Treasurer, or chief executive officer of the Society (Middle Temple Bench Book, ed. J. B. Williamson, [London, 1937], pp. xxiii, 14, 103). He was Shakespeare's only known kinsman to have been continuously connected both with him and with Middle Temple; one of the few Stratford men known to have visited Shakespeare in London; and the only known person to have shared his Stratford house, New Place, with him and his family (cf. Christopher Whitfield, NQ, CCXI .[1966], 446.) In Stratford, Greene was solicitor in 1601, and Steward (later Town Clerk) from August, 1603, until March, 1617. See Rupert Taylor, "Shakespeare's Cousin, Thomas Greene, and his Kin. . .," PMLA, 60 (1945), 81-94; Christopher Whitfield, "Some of Shakespeare's Contemporaries at the Middle Temple," NQ, 211 (1966), 122-125, 283-287, 363-369, 443-448; Leslie Hotson, Shakespeare's Sonnets Dated (1949), pp.44-46; Mark Eccles, Shakespeare in Warwickshire (Madison, Wisconsin, 1963), pp. 131-139.],
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or in residence at that time, he would have had the knowledge to correct Q titlepage and to aid in composing the Epistle. Indeed, Greg, following a private remark of Bowers, observes that the publishers were more likely to have sought the aid of whoever obtained the MS for them, than to have provided either the new titlepage or the Epistle themselves. Familiarity at least with Homer, he argues, was needed to make Pandarus a prince of Licia. [n13 While Licia, which occurs nowhere in Troilus or Shakespeare's other works, appears in the Iliad as Pandaros' home (V. 105, 173), its relevance to the play's professionally erotic Pandarus was derived elsewhere: (1) from Beaumont and Fletcher's Cupid's Revenge (written c. 1607-8; Fredson Bowers, ed., Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, Cambridge, 1970, II. 331), l.i.45-76. The Lycians there in "self-pleasing bold lasciviousnes" are" Adorers of that drowsie Deitie [Cupid] . . . the winged Boy with his obsceane Images." or (2) from Sidney's Arcadia (1590), Bk. II, ch. 13 (ed. Feuillerat, Cambridge, 1969, I. 232-235), upon which Cupid's Revenge is based. (Cf. Pandarus' Cupid-song, Troilus, IIl.i. 111-121, and his Cupid-Petition at the close of III. ii.) Since Licia was not a Shakespearean term, it was probably inserted by another literary hand. Familiarity with Licia, if the same relatively learned hand revised both the titlepage and aided in the Epistle, was accompanied by knowledge of the play and its author's career. "Clapper-clawing" (V.iv.1), Greg agrees (SFF, p.339), is borrowed in the Epistle-writer's "neuer clapper-clawd with the palmes of tbe vulger" (1.3; cf. Horace, Epist. I. 20. 11, "contretactus ubi manibus sordescere volgi"), E. K. Chambers (William Shakespeare, Oxford [1930], I. 442-443), cites possible echoes of Troilus, II.i.96-97 (cf. II.i.71) and III.i.l00, in Marston's Dutch Courtesan (1603-1604). Knowingly, the Epistle-author memorializes the last year (1609), during Shakespeare's lifetime of the publication of any of his works: "And beleeue this, that when hee is gone, and his Commedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set up a new English Inquisition."]
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The Epistle, he notes further, is precisely what a young Inns of Court wit might be expected to write, especially of "the vaine names of commedies changde for the titles of Commodities, or of Playes for Pleas" [n14 "Plays-pleas" (Epistle, 1.9) is a recurrent theatrical-legal pun; cf. Helge Kokeritz, Shakespeare's Pronunciation (1953), p. 198, and E. J. Dobson, English Pronunciation 1500-1700 (1968), II. 775, 776. Cf. e.g., Alexander Radcliffe, The Ramble (1682), p. 119, on the approach of a law-term: "Instead of Playes we now converse with Pleas"; Edward Waterhouse, A Commentary upon Fortescue (1663), pp. 519-520, on legal associations between play and plea, pleadings and placitare (cf. possible legalisms in the Prologue's "To what may be digested in a Play," l.30). Recalling Marston's own play-plea dilemma, cf. Jonson's Poetaster (1601; I.i.) in Ovid Senior's complaint against his son, "Ovid, whom I thought to see the pleader, become Ovid the play-maker." The Epistle-writer's views on "the vaine names of commedies. . . or of Playes [changde] for Pleas" against "those grand censors, that now stile them such vanities" parallel a passage recently recovered from Marston's father's will, proved November 29, 1599 (see D. G. O'Neill, "The Commencement of Marston's Career as a Dramatist," RES, n.s. XXII [1971], 444). The playwright-son is there chastised for his "delighte in playes vayne studdyes." Since lawyers' sons "strive to Run / A various fortune from their Auncestors," a character in Marston's What You Will (c. 1601) explains, "a Lawiers sonne" proves "Rarely a pleader" (Plays, ed. H. H. Wood [1934-39], II., 242).].
As resident at the Inns of Court, Marston could have known of the existence and place of the presentation copy, which the author would have been expected to provide the commissioners of his work. Further, as it coincides with Marston's departure from London, the year of Q publication coincides with his taking orders: September 24, 1609, in Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, as deacon; December 24, 1609, as priest. On December 7, 1609, he applied for reading permission at the Bodleian in Oxford. On June 18, 1610, he was witness to a legal document describing him "as of Barford in the county of Wilts" [n15 Cf. n. 8 above.].
What is known of Marston's temperament would support the hypothetical parting gift to a friend, starting a publishing venture and anxious for business, of an unpublished MS by the day's leading playwright. A year before his departure occurred his share in a scandalous play offensive to James, and his imprisonment at Newgate by the Privy Council on June 8, 1608, leading to his abandonment of what Chambers calls his "stormy connexion with the stage" [n16 E. K. Chambers, Elizabethan Stage (Oxford, 1923), II.54. Following his 1608 imprisonment, Marston vanishes from London literary life. His Insatiate Countess is left unfinished, and his share in the Blackfriars syndicate, acquired in 1603, is sold to Robert Keysar for £100.].
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Bold, headstrong, and arrogant, opposed to the censorship of books, and contemptuous of authority, Marston was notably a taker of "great chances" [n17 Finkelpearl, John Marston, p. 196. In his article on Marston and Walley (n.5 above), the same author recalls (p. 367) that an acting company with which Marston was connected had appropriated a play from the King's Men (mentioned in Webster's Induction to Marston's Malcontent).]. Such risk as that involving the MS would, in any case, have been mitigated by his departure from London, including the stage, and the legal profession which he disliked.
Further motivation, which Marston need not have obtruded upon the publishers' commercial concerns, could have involved Troilus' satirical topicalities. If, as many critics hold, its character of Ajax glances at some of Ben Jonson's comical faults [n18 W. Elton, "Shakespeare's Portrait of Ajax in Troilus and Cressida," PMLA, LXIII (1948), 744-748.], Marston's aid in transmission would have fostered a public view of an enemy's private satirical portrait. As far back as 1599 and at least as late as 1606, Marston, except for a reconciliation in 1604-5, had been at recurrent odds with Jonson. Recalling these conflicts in a 1619 conversation with Drummond, Jonson boasted that "he had many quarrells with Marston beat him & took his Pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him . . ." [n19 Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and Percy Simpson (Oxford, 1954), I, 140.]. Since between 1606 and 1609, there is no record of reconciliation, Marston's attacks on Jonson in the prefaces to the Fawn and Sophonisba (both 1606) may represent his attitude prior to departure. Marston's oblique farewell to the stage could thus at once benefit a friend, outwit or deprive the lawyers, and pay his last satirical respects to a literary and personal enemy.
Cancellation and Q Copy. Transmission of a MS to Q publishers returns us to the question of the copy behind Q, as well as its possible role in Q state-1 cancellation. Insofar as the latter meant not only additional expense, time, and trouble, but also the loss of cachets of established buying-appeal, the commercial publishers would not willingly have incurred such disadvantages. It is thus reasonable to conclude that some compelling new information, or force of unusual circumstances, led them to necessary changes.
What caused the initial misdescription in Q and the undesirable consequences? It would not have been a fair copy transmitted by Marston from the Inns of Court, for this would have borne signs of its special and private auspices-clearly not "As acted by the Kings Maiesties seruants at the Globe." If we deny this last deduction, we must assume (1) that the fair-copy presentation transcript bore no special signs distinguishing it from more usual foul copy MSS; or (2) that Marston misinformed his friend about his transmitted MS's origins;
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or (3) that Walley, son and grandson of stationers could not discriminate between a hypothetical foul-papers MS and a possible fair-copy MS of a private performance. Unless we assume that Walley deliberately lied on the titlepage, we are led to conclude that the misinformamation on titlepage state 1 derived not from the Inns of Court fair copy, but from another, prior, source [n20 Further support for the second-MS hypothesis comes from Kenneth J. Palmer, editor of the forthcoming New Arden Troilus, who has privately suggested the introduction of a third compositor as well as another MS. Williams has shown (op. cit.) that the cancel's two leaves were printed in one forme with the final M gathering. Cancellation was thus decided after outer A was printed but before either forme of M had been printed. Apart from these limits, cancellation might have occurred at other points in printing. Of special interest is III.ii, to which Dr. Palmer has drawn my attention as the scene closest to the corrected titlepage's description: "the conceited wooing of Pandarus" accompanying the "excellent expression" of "the beginning of" the "loues" of "Troylus and Cresseid". If the description is taken in the sense of "beginning" mutual encounter, the conjunction of Pandarus' "conceited wooing" with their loves' "beginning" could indicate III.ii as the point of cancellation and titlepage revision. These hypotheses are consistent with the in medias res transmission of an Inns of Court MS possessing copyright value and corrective information.].
Such another source existed in the foul papers, whose rights Roberts' entry ("to print when he hath gotten sufficient aucthority for yt") was probably intended to protect. In any case, Roberts did not follow up his entry, selling his business to William Jaggard between 1604 and 1606 [n21 Greg, SFF, pp. 6, 21-22. For a revised view of Roberts' role, see A. S. Cairncross, "Shakespeare and the 'Staying Entries,'" in T. J. Stafford, ed., Shakespeare in the Southwest (El Paso, Texas, 1969), pp. 80-93, rejecting Roberts as an ally of Shakespeare's company. For the opposing view, favoring Pollard's notion of Roberts' registrations as "blocking entries," see Greg, Some Aspects and Problems of London Publishing between 1550 and 1650 (Oxford, 1956), pp. 114-115, 120-121.]. Roberts' departure, and the possible availability of an unpublished Shakespearean MS, may indeed have encouraged Walley's new firm to undertake the play. To advertise their trouvaille, Roberts' MS, or a copy of the foul papers lacking clear provenance, the young partners could have done either or both of the following: (1) leaped to the credible and advantageous conclusion that a Shakespearean play had been acted by his company at his usual theatre. (2) blindly copied and expanded Roberts' entry-acceptable to the acting company if authorized, or provisional with regard to printing—adding only three words to the company's new name, "at the Globe."
Even if recognizing that they had been misinformed, what then compelled the firm to incur the losses represented by the cancellation and the Epistle? Since the case seems similar to that of the play's F1 printing, Greg's account of the latter 22 applies, mutatis mutandis, also to Q [n22 Cf. Greg, "The Printing of Shakespeare's 'Troilus and Cressida' in the First Folio," Publications of the Bibl. Soc. of America, XLV (1951), 273-282; SFF, pp.445-449.].
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In F, Greg and others agree, Jaggard, blocked from reprinting Q as long as no MS was available, recovered, after a delay, the foul-papers which allowed him to proceed. If challenged, he could have pointed to the many passages, including a newly recovered Prologue, in which his text differed from Q. It is perhaps such a motive, as much as the inadequate state of the lines' excision in the foul-papers, which led to their restoration.
Similarly, Bonian and Walley's claim to their copy of the foul-papers might also have been disputed, by either or both the actors' company or the possessor of Roberts' copyright. In fact, the Epistle acknowledges a nearly effective attempt to block Q's publication: "thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you. Since by the grand possessors wills I beleeue you should haue prayd for them rather then beene prayd." As this play had made a particularly fortunate "scape", some means had been found to circumvent the "grand possessors" who objected to their rights' infringement, "willing" non-publication. Circumstances thus suggest that, as Jaggard was forced to provide a MS to assist his claim, so Bonian and Walley could have found a new MS of parallel value [n23 If Jaggard was among those who impeded Walley's Q publication (1609) by interposing his acquired rights in Roberts' 1603 entry, Walley's motive, later, for blocking Jaggard's use of Q in the Folio (1623) would have been strengthened. Further, Walley's rising position in the Stationers's Company could have aided his claims on his own behalf.].
If the first MS misled the publishers, the second functioned as a corrective. That a private or fair copy stood behind Q has been argued, among others, by Miss Walker: "The most cogent evidence that the manuscript from which the quarto was printed had reached Bonian and Walley from some private source is the character of the quarto itself, which is notably lacking in just those features which for production would matter most—reliable speakers' names and serviceable stage directions. The manuscript may therefore have been a private transcript" [n24 Alice Walker, Textual Problems of the First Folio (Cambridge, 1953), p.70. cf. Greg, SFF, pp. 341-342.]. Free of King's men and Globe labels, and owned not by a troupe but by a non-theatrical agency, the second MS' existence and use could have fortified the Q publishers' claim, accounting for and justifying the losses incurred in cancellation.
Relations of Q and F. Behind Q are the possibilities of two MSS: (1) the foul papers, owned by the acting company; (2) a fair-copy transcript, perhaps authorial, owned by an Inn of Court. Q was probably printed, at least in part, from the latter. Behind F, on the other hand, is a copy of Q collated with the foul papers, adding lines wanting in Q. F stage directions seem lacking, reflecting. probably author's foul-papers, rather than bookkeeper or prompt-book.
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Strong evidence of foul-paper collation in F, it is agreed, are duplications at (1) IV.v.96; and at (2) V.iii.132 with V.x.32-34 [n25 J. K. Walton, The Quarto Copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare (New York, 1971), p.249. Concerning foul-paper versus prompt-book collation in F, Walton, p.280, notes: "Troilus . . . is the exception which proves the rule that whenever a manuscript was consulted it was the prompt-book which was referred to; for we have reason to believe that this play was never publicly acted, and therefore a prompt-book may never have existed."]. Both cases clearly suggest that the foul papers contained Shakespeare's first and second thoughts about their locations. Against the possibility that, in the second case, such change may have been made and the epilogue added in the prompt-book, Greg points to an unquestionable false start in the first instance:
The yongest sonne of Priam, a true knight,
Not yet mature, yet matchlesse firme of word. . .
They call him Troylus, and on him erect,
A second hope as fairely built as Hector. . .
F ends the same, but begins:
The yongest Sonne of Priam;
A true Knight; they call him Troylus;
Not yet mature, yet matchlesse, firme of word. . .
Shakespeare apparently first wrote
The yongest sonne of Priam, a true Knight,
They call him Troylus,
inadequately crossed out these last four words, saving the phrase till later for enhanced effect. That Q omits the cancelled words proves, Greg concludes, that it was printed from a properly edited MS [n26 Greg, SFF, pp. 346-347.].
Troilus' peculiarity in diction and appeal could even in the foul papers have been visible to the Q publishers, who presumably caused some of the more difficult passages to be edited out. When a new MS or fair transcript turned up, their awareness of a private commodity would have been confirmed. Evidences such as titlepage alteration and wording, Epistle, editorial excisions of "first thoughts" as well as of possible obscurities, point to a deliberate policy of popularization. As Greg and Bowes [sic] have agreed [n27 Alexander and Greg, like E. K. Chambers, view some Q differences from F as attempts at clarity; Greg (SFF, p. 345) notes that "a good case could be made out for regarding the excisions as removing lines in which the thought was obscure or needlessly involved." But none of these critics places Q changes from F in the general context of transmission and the policy of popularization.], the publishers were likely to have employed the transmitter, rather than to undertake the new titlepage or Epistle themselves [n28 Greg, SFF, pp. 348-349.].
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For this purpose, the talents of Marston who, by procuring a new MS, may have saved his friend from copyright troubles [n29 Walley may, in turn, have reciprocated Marston's friendship in another instance of titlepage cancellation. After copies of the first issue of Marston's Works were published in 1633 by William Sheares (alluding to the playwright in the preface as "farre distant from this place," sig. A4), he was prevailed upon to use cancels in the rest of his stock to remove Marston's name. That cancellation, one year before the latter's death, and long after his taking holy orders, has been linked to an antipathy to connection with his former theatrical career. As Clerk of the Stationers' Company (1630-1640), Walley may have served his "auncient friend" in influencing Sheares's cancellation. (Cf. Brettle, Library, ser. 4, 8 [1927-28], 339-340, 344-346).], could have been enlisted. [n30 Q's italicization points to an editor with philosophical and possibly satirical interests, or concerned with their presence in a popularized text. Miss Walker (MLR, 45 [1950], 461-462), remarks the curious use of italics in Q. While, like other quartos, it italicizes proper names in dialogue, it also italicizes "quite a number of fairly common words of learned origin: maxim (I.ii.284), chaos (I.iii. 125), indexes (I.iii.343), modicums (II.i.66), pia mater (II.i.69), moral philosophy (II.ii.167), quondam (IV.v.179), major (V.i.42)." Chaos and index are not elsewhere italicized in quartos or F, she observes, while maxim, modicum and moral philosophy occur in Shakespeare only in Troilus. Italics also appear in two abstractions or sententiae: on love (I.ii.319) and on justice (I.iii.117), as well as in two parentheses (I.ii.100-101; I.iii.328-329, in a semi-learned allusion to Apollo and Lybia). Cf., in addition to her instances, italicizations in Q, but not in F, of classical references: Ioue (Liii.20), Mercury. . . Ioue (II.iiA5), Ioue (II.ii.126), Sparta's (II.ii.183), Cancer (II.iii.206), Genius (IV.iv.52), Iupiter (IV.v.191, Mars (IV.v. 198), Colossus (V.v.9), Tytan (V.x.25). Also italicized are four words, whose italics, she says, are "without parallel," and among which she finds no connection: Clatpoles (II.i.128); Whetstone (V.ii.75); Autumne (I.ii.139); and Compters (II.ii. 28). But the first two are Therites' [sic] insult-terms; the third (also italicized in F) is in a context of disparagement ("Oh yes," sneers Cressida, "and twere a clowd in Autumne"); and the last is contemptuously employed by Troilus against Hector. This class of negative—or Schimpfworter is supported by other italicizations in Q, but not in F, which she does not cite: Coblofe (II.i.40); Asinico (II.i.48); the diuell Luxury (V.ii.55). While such italics, Miss Walker concludes, would be pointless in a theatrically-intended MS, the MS for Q had probably been marked by someone who underlined words and phrases of concern to him. Although the italics may be compositorial, she holds it more likely they resulted from markings by a reader, who thus led the compositors to suppose italics were required. If such underlinings betoken an editor, Marston once again comes to mind: in addition to his satirical interests, Marston was a student of philosophy. In his "supplicat", of December 7, 1609, requesting permission to use the Bodleian Library, he claimed "tres annos et vltra. . . in studio philosophiae" (RES, 3 [1927], 404-405).]
Such popularizing would attempt to remove the original occasion's more specialized allusions. If we examine each of the over one-line omissions in Q which are present in F, [n31 In contrast, omissions of F which are present in Q are far fewer in number—less than one-fifth—and much less important than those omissions of Q present in F. The former category, the NVS editor concludes (p. 341), "can all be explained as probable cuts or as printer's oversights such as one expects to find now and then."]
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we shall find in virtually every case some recognition of Q as described above: the product of an edited foul-papers MS and a fair-copy presentation MS, further edited for publication. Presence of such "first thoughts" as might be expected to occur in foul papers may, in their inadequately unexcised state, suggest some haste in preparation of dramatic copy, as if for an occasional deadline. If the occasion were an Inns of Court revel, the MS might be expected to include academically and perhaps topically allusive satire, and more or less sophisticated bawdry. Further, since the Inns of Court stressed training in manners, and were ostensibly only for the sons of gentlemen, their revels might also include parodies of manners.
Following is a list comprising every over one-line omission in Q which is present in F:
(1) Prologue. Recovered by Jaggard in F printing, the Prologue was preserved to fill an unexpectedly empty page, i.e., for typographical or other than literary reasons. The "armed Prologue" describing the war and ignoring the eponymous lovers would have run counter to the direction of titlepage state 2, which omitted the war-plot and emphasized the love-plot [n32 In contrast to the Prologue's war-emphasis, the Epilogue permitted the return of Pandarus, whose presence on the revised titlepage indicated his desirability and popular status. If the Prologue, moreover, was recovered partly through F's need to fill an unexpectedly blank page, Q's Epilogue-retention may have been influenced by a similar factor. As the new titlepage, pi 1, was conjugate with M 1, and its blank verso with M IV (cf. Williams, SB, 2 [1949-50], 30), the cancellation-process provided an opportunity to fill up M 1v, bare except for four lines, with the Epilogue.]. It would also have contradicted the pleasurable-comedy emphasis of the Epistle, which itself might have preempted space intended for the Prologue. Finally, the "Prologue arm'd," in its allusion to Jonson's Poetaster (1601) would by 1609 have lost its private point, in any case, to a general public.
(2) I.iii.76-80:
Aga. Speak Prince of Ithaca, and be't of lesse expect:
That matter needlesse of importlesse burthen
Diuide thy lips; then we are confident
When ranke Thersites opes his Masticke iawes,
We shall heare Musicke, Wit, and Oracle.
Although NVS ed. holds (p. 339) that "an insertion to break up a very long speech is more probable than a deliberate cutting," he agrees that its accidental omission is also not likely. He concludes that "The case is puzzling." Like other would-be courtly but comically self-defeating remarks of Agamemnon, this royally twisted speech seems authorial. Attempting a compliment, in reply to Ulysses' speech addressing him with dubious honor
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as "nerue, and Bone of Greece," the Greek king returns a courtesy couched in impossibilia: "May it be less expected that needless matter come from your lips than that we shall hear music, wit, and oracle from Thersites." While the questionable compliment might have been relished by a private audience anticipating such gibes, it would have been lost on a general audience.
(3) Liii.368-370:
Which entertain'd, Limbes are in his instruments, [sic]
In no lesse working, then are Swords and Bowes
Directiue by the Limbes.
Although Tannenbaum terms these lines "as superfluous as they are obscure and fantastic" and asserts their omission in Q is "almost without a doubt. . . the work of the author" [n33 S. A. Tannenbaum, "A Critique of the Text of 'Troilus and Cresida': Part I, The Quarto Text," Sh. Assoc. Bull., 9 (1934), 61.], the question remains why they were written in the first place. Recurrence in the play of learned allusions in parodic form includes a literal allusion to Aristotle, mock-pedantically invoked against young men, and thus, like the comically insulting Epilogue, suitable to a youthful academic audience: "... young men, whom Aristotle thought / Vnfit to heare Moral Philosophie" (II. ii. 173-174). If the lines above, omitted from Q, mean anything, they are parodic of Aristotle as well. They allude to a central passage in the main moral-philosophic text of Elizabethan higher education: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, on moral responsibility. In cases where acts are voluntary, observes Aristotle, the movement of the limbs instrumental to the action originates in the agent himself, and when this is so it is in a man's power to act or not to act. [n34 The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics Translated, trans. J. A. K. Thomson (Harmondsworth, Middlesex [Penguin], 1965), p.78. Book Three, ch. 1. Cf. Aristotle, Ethicorum ad Nicomachum, trans. Antonio Riccobono, comm. Marco Cornelio (Francofurti: Apud heres And. Wecheli et al., 1596) p.l08: "etenim principium mouendi partes, quae sunt tanquam instrumenta in talibus actionibus in ipso est. at, quorum in ipso principium est, ab ipso etiam pendet ea agire, & non agere."].
Or, as the Troilus passage has it, "limbs are in his instruments," [sic] originating in the agent himself, "In no lesse working" than are "Swords and Bowes / Directiue by the Limbes"—the agent being responsible for the movement of the limbs as he is for the swords and bows employed by those limbs. Such a passage as Aristotle's dealing with the voluntariness of acts and moral guilt would have been especially studied and commented on by law students, and could in its parodic form have drawn reminiscent laughter. Since the lines in their allusiveness have remained a mystery until the present, whoever edited them out of the foul papers for Q was correct in their omission.
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(4) II.iii.53-57:
Patr. You rascal!.
Ter. Peace foole, I haue not done.
Achil. He is a priuiledg'd man, proceede Thersites.
Ther. Agamemnon is a foole, Achilles is a foole,
Thersites is a foole, and as aforesaid, Patroclus is a foole.
Redundant for a general audience, since the idea is expanded in II.ii.59-62, the logically quibbling tone with its running gag on intelligence and its use of the technical "priuiledg'd" [n35 Cf. OED, s.v., sb. 2. und 4.: ". . . immunities enjoyed. . . as freedom of speech, freedom from arrest. . ." Cf. Troilus, IV.iv.138-139, "Let me be priuiledg'd by my place and message / To be a speaker free," where the implication of the special term is made explicit. See John Cowell, A Law Dictionary (1708), s.v.; William T. Jones, "Conflict or Collaboration? Chancery Attitudes in the Reign of Elizabeth I," Amer. Jour. of Legal History, 5 (1961), 13-14.], would have been appropriate to an academic performance.
(5) II.iii.73-74:
Now the dry Suppeago on
the Subiect, and Warre and Lecherie confound all.
Too technical (cf. "priuiledg'd" above), in addition to its unpleasantness, for a popular audience, "suppeago" and its context was dropped from a passage that already seemed excessive, at its more easily excisable end.
(6) IILiii.168-170:
Or like a gallant Horse falne in first ranke,
Lye there for pauement to the abiect, neere
Ore-run and trampled on:
Comprehensible to a private audience, the simile of possible double entendre significance occurs in Ulysses' counsel not to "haue done" and "hang / Quite out of fashion, like a rustie male," and not to "hedge aside from the direct forth right," for if Achilles did, a thousand other sons would rush by him like an "entred Tyde". While a public reader might have found the lines pointless or obscure, they might, as at a revel, have amused young students anticipating such allusions.
(7) IV.iv.80-81:
Their louing well compos'd, with guift of nature,
Flawing.
Q edited out the description of youthful erotic talents as more suitable to an academic festivity than to a popular audience.
(8) IV.iv.155-159:
Dio. Let vs make ready straight.
Aene. Yea, with a Bridegroomes fresh alacritie
Let vs addresse to tend on Hector's heeles;
The glory of our Troy doth this day lye
On his faire worth, and single Chiualrie.
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Following F's "Exeunt" (l.154), the speech lacks an "Exeunt" after it, where it belongs, the end of the scene. Like other cases, as at IV.v.96 and in the Pandarus-exit double ending (V.iii.132 and V.x.32-34), the "Exeunt" at l.154 seems not, as a first thought, like the speech itself, to have been clearly erased.
(9) IV.v. 186-191:
But that's no welcome: vnderstand more cleere
What's past, and what's to come, is strew'd with huskes
And formlesse ruine of obliuion:
But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain'd purely from all hollow bias drawing:
Bids thee with most diuine integritie.
This, like I.iii.76:-80, is another of Agamemnon's would-be courteous clumsy ejaculations. Having greeted Hector with self-tripping courtesy, "Worthy of Armes: as welcome as to one / That would be rid of such an enemie," the rhetorically-confused king comically struggles to undo his inadvertent insult with the anticlimactic, "But that's no welcome." This, like the following platitudinous posturing with its mixed bowling-metaphor (l.190) could have amused gentlemanly students, but bewildered the uninitiated reader.
(10) V.iii.23-25:
Omission occurs after Andromache bids Hector,
"O be persuaded, doe not count it holy,"
To hurt by being iust; it is as lawfull:
For we would count giue much to as violent thefts,
And rob in the behalfe of charitie.
In addition to an apparent conceptual obscurity in these lines, there is evidence here, as elsewhere, of revision currente calamo, without clear erasure. Two of the major factors in F-retention and Q-omission seem here displayed, language addressed, to a special (or academic) audience's awareness, and first thoughts incompletely eradicated. The confusion in the line beginning "For we could count giue much..." does suggest inadequate crossing out in MS, the F compositor copying literally, regardless of sense. Q editor wisely dropped this tangled passage, making Andromache's opening line cited above, the opening line of a four-line speech, the final three of which are assigned by F to Cassandra.
(11) V.x.24-25:
But march away,
Hector is dead: there is no more to say.
This omission of Troilus' lines in Q may be related to Q's bringing back Troilus with more to say to Pandarus, the only remaining dialogic character. In short, these lines omitted in Q belong with the previous dismissal of Pandarus at V.iii.132-134, a relic of which remains in F but is excised from Q.
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When Q smoothed over this point of revision by dropping the first of Pandarus' double-exits, it also dropped these one-and-a-half lines which could have marked Troilus' closing dialogue. Once again, F shows itself a repository of inadequately erased "first thoughts," and Q the more carefully edited text [n36 Popularization is Q's trend not only in passages, but in many instances of words and syntax. Here also the editorial criterion is not Alexander's "harder reading" (op. cit., p. 275), but facilior lectio: (1) Word-simplifications: whinid'st leauen (F, lI.i.15) vnsalted leauen (Q, II.i.15) Or hedge aside (F, III.iii.165) Or turne a side (Q, IIl.iii.158) His pettish lines (F, II.iii.131) His course, and time (Q lI.iii.139). (2) Word-simplifications, involving indifference to the meter: "Corrects the ill Aspects of Planets euill" (F, I.iii.98) receives translation of the technical astrological term "Aspects" as "influence" in Q, while the syntax is straightened out and prosaicized: "Corrects the influence of euill Planets" (Q, I.iii.92). F's philosophical "the secrets of nature" (IV.ii.79) turns into Q's more familiar "the secrets of neighbor Pandar" (IV.ii.73). Similarly, F's philosophical-legal "coact" (possibly borrowed from its repeated use in the same chapter of Aristotle's Nic. Ethics cited above, note 34; cf. 1596 trans. cited, pp.109, 531) is vulgarized into "Court": "But if 1 tell how these two did coact" (F, V.ii.140) becomes "But if 1 tell how these two did Court" (Q, V.ii.118). F's "Knowes almost euery graine of Plutoes gold" (III.iii.206) is simplified in Q, which drops the problematical allusion: "Knowes amost euery thing" (III.iii.197). F's "Not making any scruple of her soylure" (IV.i.65) becomes the simpler "Not making any scruple of her soyle" (Q, IV.i.56). Unconcern regarding meter suggests the preparation, not of a theatrical text, but of a popular reading one. (3) Syntactical transpositions and metrical indifference: F's poetically oblique "The luster of the better yet to shew, / Shall shew the better" (I.iii.375-376) is flattened into the unmetrically prosy "If not; the luster of the better shall exceed, / By shewing the worse first" (Q, l.iii.360-361). F's inversion, "I shall so say to him" (II.iii.83), is straightened into Q's "I shall say so to him" (lI.iii.90). F's "I speake 1 know not what" (III.ii.151) is transposed into Q's "I know not what 1 speake" (IIl.ii.158). F's "A horson dog, that shal palter thus with vs" (II.iii.237) becomes Q's "A hoarson dog that shall palter with vs thus" (II.iii.244). Cf. also F's III.ii.120 and Q's III.ii.128. (4) Profanity removal. Forbidden by Act of 1606 (cf. Greg, SFF, references, p. 488), allusions to the Deity were frequently purged in F. But here F's "Make that demand to the Creator" (lI.iii.66) is altered in the popularized Q version, losing the point of Thersites' joke: "Make that demand of the Prouer" (lI.iii. 72).].
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F 1 and Genre. That F 1 is of questionable testimony regarding Troilus' genre may be deduced from the following account. Troilus is the only F 1 play missing from its classificatory Catalogue. Transferred from its first intended position after Romeo in the Tragedies to its out-of-pagination insertion in a "no-man's land" between the Histories and Tragedies, it lacks clear generic labelling. Analogously, as an indication of F editorial indifference or ignorance, Cymbeline, too, was classed as Tragedy, but unlike Troilus was not altered in its location.
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When, after F's interruption in the printing of Troilus, a MS was recovered and the piece became available, it was, says Greg, inserted at the head of the Tragedies as the only possible place, since it had "always been assigned to this section," and the colophon had been set at the end of Cymbeline [n37 Greg, SFF, p. 447; cf. p. 340n.]. Greg thus denies the suggestion of Alexander and others that the changed position in F reflected any editorial doubt concerning genre. In contrast, Miss Walker describes the play as having been inserted by convenience rather than genre, and ultimately placed between the Histories and Tragedies. Although the first three F pages (the text of I.i.1-I.ii.235) are, she shows, mere derivatives of Q 1609, from the point where printing was resumed F text takes on a very different character, including the restoration of many words, lines, and passages omitted in Q [n38 Walker, "The Textual Problem of Troilus and Cressida," MLR, 45 (1950), 459-464.].
Against Greg's certainty, Miss Walker's view may be strengthened. For the introduction of the new MS was accompanied by the following F features: (1) Troilus, first intended for the Tragedies, was moved between the Histories and Tragedies. This, by itself, might argue little concerning editorial indecision. But (2) simultaneously with access to the new MS, to follow Greg's own account, Jaggard's editors dropped, after the first three reprinted pages, the explicit "tragedy" designation for Troilus in the running heads. This excision is unique in F printing: no generic ascription is suddenly dismissed by dropping the generic prefix in any other F play (Timon being no exception: Life of, merely, was dropped). (3) The text assumes a very different character. (4) Greg himself argued F ignorance or indifference regarding genre; "whoever was responsible for including Cymbeline in that [Tragedy] section is unlikely to have had any qualms over Troilus" [n39 Greg, SFF, p. 447n.]. But the case against final tragic genre for Troilus is a fortiori: in the instance of Cymbeline, mislabelled Tragedy, no pause in printing, or new manuscript with possible information, intervened to permit generic re-attribution. Such a concurrence of factors, coincidental with the new MS, suggests that the latter may have contained a clue to early auspices or genre. Probably long in the possession of Shakespeare's company, the recovered foul papers, at some point during that period, could have acquired indications of the play's original provenance. Whatever the circumstances, the evidential value of F's generic attribution or attributions may be seen to lack significance.
Epistle in Q (state 2). As the only detailed commentary on a Shakespearean play published in the author's lifetime, the Epistle in Q (state 2) thus merits special attention. In addition to being confutable by living witnesses to the contrary, it was attached to a work whose perusal could immediately verify its claims. Since there is no record of its having been challenged in the author's lifetime, it would seem to take priority over later commentaries.
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Further, in its reiterated assertions that the play is a comedy, it is consistent (1) with the corrected titlepage (Q state 2); (2) with the evidence and hypotheses hitherto presented; and (3) with detailed internal indications shortly to be published in a full-length study of the play [n40 In a monograph by the present writer, "Troilus" and the Revels.].
Nine times employing "Commedie" or "comicall," the Epistle's author [n41 His "neuer writer, to an euer reader" salutation need not be taken too literally. Similar conventions of self-demeaning flattery recur, e.g., in "The Printer to the Reader" of Dekker's Noble Spanish Soldier (1634).] affirms that Troilus is a comedy. Since "history" was used loosely in Shakespeare's time to mean fable or story, as well as chronicle, the Epistle's iterative insistence does not conflict with previous testimony. The Epistle's concern to make clear the play's genre, to point to a comic value and substance, seems appropriate to 'a work which continues to puzzle critics. Its directive seems plain: give the work the attention it merits, as well "as the best Commedy in Terence or Plautus" [n42 The Plautine analogy recalls Meres's Palladis Tamia (1598), dedicated to Thomas Eliot of Middle Temple: Shakespeare "among the English is the most excellent" in comedy, as Plautus was "among the Latines" (sig. 002). Plautine comedy as Saturnalian release (cf. among others, Erich Segal, Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus, Cambridge, Mass., 1968, pp.43-50) approximates the tone of Inns of Court revels. Plautus and those revels meet in Comedy of Errors, adapted from the Menaechmi, and performed at Gray's Inn during Christmas, 1594, celebrations. Such compatibility is confirmed in a contemporary comment on Shakespeare's other play known to have been acted at the Inns of Court: John Manningham, a student at Middle Temple describes Twelfth Night's revels' performance there February 2, 1602: "At our feast wee had a play called 'Twelue night, or What you Will,' much like the Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus ..." (Diary of John Manningham of the Middle Temple. . . 1602-1603, ed. John Bruce. Camden Soc. ser. 1, 99 [New York, 1968], p. 18.)]. Like these Latin dramatists who were by Shakespeare's time much annotated and studied in schools and universities, the Epistle asserts that Troilus, as a comedy, deserves a proportionate apparatus of explication.
Although unapplauded by the vulgar, the play overflows with prizeworthy comedy. For "it is a birth of your braine [n43 Cf. Printer to the Reader, Beaumont and Fletcher's Cupid's Revenge (1615): writings "are the best Minervaes of their [the writers'] braine." Q Epistle's mental birth-imagery is matched by its later physical birth-imagery of Venus Anadyomene ("borne in that sea that brought forth Venus"), with its possible allusion to Venus and Adonis. Associating Troilus with that extremely popular Shakespearean work would further Q's policy of popularization.], that neuer under-tooke any thing commicall, vainely." Comedy, the writer concedes, may be scorned as "vaine," as "vanities," and as lacking in "the grace of" gravity. The commercial publishers would hardly have encouraged the writer's emphasis on the comic genre he admits to being a sales-impediment unless he had no alternative.
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Here, as in the case of the never publicly performed drama, the writer is making a virtue of a necessity. Committed to making palatable a "vain" commodity, he attributes further virtues to his publication. Like Falstaff on "the cause that wit is in other men" (2 Henry IV, Lii.12), he praises the comedy's wit-endowing efficacy: "And all such dull and heauywitted worldlings, as were neuer capable of the witte of a Commedie, comming by report of them to his representations, haue found that witte there, that they neuer found in themselues, and haue parted better wittied then they came: feeling an edge of wit set upon them, more then euer they dreamd they had braine to grinde it on."
Having defended comedies against their vain name, and having praised Shakespeare's comedies in particular as "fram'd to the life," and wit-enhancing, the Epistle-writer singles out Troilus: "So much and such sauored salt of witte [n44 Cf. OED, S.v. salt sb.1 3.c. That which gives life or pungency to discourse. . . pungent wit. . . S. F. Johnson, to whom I am indebted for reading this essay, reminds me of the Elizabethan duality of bitter or satirical wit (cf. Jonson's Volpone, Pro1., 1.34), and sweet wit (d. Meres, Palladis Tamia, 1598, sig. [Oo1V]: "the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & honey tongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis. . . "). See references to the salt-sweet wit duality in Goeffrey Hartman, "Beyond Formalism", in Velocities of Change, ed. Richard Macksey (Baltimore, 1974), pp.106-109. The Epistle's wit-allusions are echoed by John Gyfford (or Giffard), probably admitted to Inner Temple in November, 1599; cf. Michael Strachan, Life and Adventures of Thomas Coryate (London, 1962), p.278. In "Panegyrick Verses" (to Coryats crudities, 1611; S. R. 26 November 1610; ed. Glasgow, 1905, p.68), cf. "sharpest edge of wit" with Epistle's "edge of witte"; and "such salt of wit. . . doth make it sav'rie" with Epistle's "such sauored salt of witte."] is in his Commedies, that they seeme (for their height of pleasure) to be borne in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there is none more witty then this." In the context of "height of pleasure" and "sea that brought forth Venus," such "salt" suggests also pleasurably spiced or erotically pungent wit. Troilus, the writer concludes, is Shakespeare's wittiest comedy.
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Conclusion. The evidence of the Epistle, pointing to a privately performed comedy of pleasurable or pungent wit, is consistent with records of Inns of Court revels, such as the Gesta Grayorum (1594) of Gray's Inn and the Prince d'Amour (1597-8) of Middle Temple. That the Q publishers had in hand such a privately intended comedy, and that their state-2 titlepage and Epistle popularized it for public sale are, the evidence indicates, probable. Such deductions are consistent with the hypotheses and evidence here presented: the transmission to Q of an Inns of Court MS ; the reasons for the cancellations in Q;
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the editing of Q copy to remove private-performance impediments to popularization; the irrelevance of F 1 pre-cancellation generic ascription; and the Epistle's never contemporarily contradicted claim that Troilus, among Shakespeare's witty comedies, is "passing full of the palme comicall."
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