The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.427 Tuesday, 30 September 2014
From: Gerald E. Downs <
Date: September 29, 2014 at 12:09:08 AM EDT
Subject: Love’s Labor’s Lost, 4.2
In the last few weeks I’ve read Love’s Labor’s Lost for evidence of reporting. Someone might be interested but as my “introduction” runs long (as usual) and lists reasons why few are likely to be interested, I’ll begin instead (almost) with the playtext, which is by definition (Shakespeare) worthy of attention. As we know, F derives from Q1, which is itself at least Q2. F editors correct and botch but they’re not relevant. I use Q1, Furness, and Arden3 (Woudhuysen, who does as well as can be expected when reporting is not on the horizon). I haven’t yet troubled with much else on the same passages I’ve analyzed.
I’ll focus on speech prefixes at 4.2, which are confused (to say the least). According to Arden3, Hibbard explains that Shakespeare “began the scene in London and tried to finish it while out of town”; so much for editorial rigor, but that’s how “foul papers” are (not) explained.
Enter Dull,Holofernes,the Pedant and Nathaniel.
[Dull is the constable, Nathaniel the curate, Holofernes a schoolmaster. Pedant also designates Holofernes, which doesn’t quite seem clear to the Q1 printers. I guess that s.p.’s were added to Q1 copy piecemeal and not by a lone agent. Alternatively, Shakespeare (the author!) accounts for this muddle much as it stands. We should ask which guess best explains the text.]
Nat. Very reuerent sport truly, and done in the testimonie
of a good conscience.
Ped. The Deare was (as you know) sanguis in blood, ripe
as the Pomwater, who now hangeth like a Iewel in the eare
of Celo the skie, the welken the heauen, & anon falleth like
a Crab on the face of Terra the soyle, the land, the earth.
Curat Nath. Truely M. Holofernes, the epythithes are
sweetly varried like a scholler at the least: but sir I assure ye
it was a Bucke of the first head. 1160
Holo. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
Dul. Twas not a haud credo, twas a Pricket.
Holo. Most barbarous intimation: yet a kind of insinua-
tion, as it were in via, in way of explication facere: as it were
replication, or rather ostentare, to show as it were his inclina-
tion after his vndressed, vnpolished, vneducated, vnpruned,
vntrained, or rather vnlettered, or ratherest vnconfirmed fa-
shion, to insert again my haud credo for a Deare.
Dul. I said the Deare was not a haud credo,twas a Pricket.
Holo. Twice sodd simplicitie, bis coctus, O thou monster
ignorance, How deformed doost thou looke. 1172
Nath. Sir he hath neuer fed of the dainties that are bred
in a booke.
He hath not eate paper as it were: he hath not drunke inck.
His intellect is not replenished, he is only an annimall, only
sensible in the duller partes: and such barren plantes are
set before vs, that we thankful should be: which we taste,
and feeling, are for those partes that doe fructifie in vs
more then he. 1082 (foole
For as it would ill become me to be vaine, indistreell, or a
So were there a patch set on Learning, to see him in a schole.
But omne bene say I, being of an olde Fathers minde,
Many can brooke the weather, that loue not the winde.
Dul. You two are book-men, Can you tel me by your wit,
What was a month old at Cains birth, that's not fiue weeks
old as yet? 1191
[If speech headings were assigned by scanning the dialogue it is possible that Nathaniel’s lines are mistaken: ‘He hath not eate paper . . . to see him in a schole’ may belong to Holofernes, when Nathaniel resumes at ‘But omne . . . .’ Though I suggest this change no one can insist on either version. Yet the evidence below suggests ascription errors should be diligently searched out. We shouldn’t rely on a non-existent (disqualified) Q1 authority. Actors can spout the wrong speeches as if they mean business but some good must come from setting things right.
F alters Q1 at 1080 to ‘which we taste and feeling, are . . .’ with no improvement; Tyrwhitt’s ‘(which we of taste and feeling are)’ is accepted. F’s failure to correct Q1 is typical of evidence that shouldn’t be ignored by those who believe implicitly in the general authority of the Folio and its punctuation. But there’s way too much of this kind of evidence to kick around here.]
Holo. Dictisima goodman Dull, dictisima goodman Dull.
Dul. What is dictima?
Nath. A title to Phebe, to Luna, to the Moone. (more
Holo. The Moone was a month old when Adam was no
And rought not to fiue-weeks when he came to fiuescore.
Th'allusion holdes in the Exchange. (change
Dul. Tis true in deede, the Collusion holdes in the Ex-
Holo. God comfort thy capacitie, I say th'allusion holdes
in the Exchange.
Dul. And I say the polusion holdes in the Exchange: for
the Moone is neuer but a month olde: and I say beside
that, twas a Pricket that the Princesse kild.
Holo. Sir Nathaniel, will you heare an extemporall Epy-
taph on the death of the Deare, and to humour the igno-
rault cald the Deare: the Princesse kild a Pricket.
[Misspellings occur by accident (‘indistreell’, ‘ignorault’) but one should take heed of all strange spellings because scholars love to think Shakespeare couldn’t spell. Latin and Italian are muffed especially; Arden3 blames that on compositors (as if they wouldn’t have reason to follow their copy in unfamiliar languages). Spellings in John of Bordeaux generally and fully explain these phonetic matters, which recur in many bad quartos.]
Nath. Perge, good M. Holofernes perge, so it shall please
you to abrogate squirilitie.
Holo. I wil somthing affect the letter,for it argues facilitie.
The prayfull Princesse pearst and prickt 1216
a prettie pleasing Pricket,
Some say a Sore, but not a sore,
till now made sore with shooting.
The Dogges did yell, put ell to Sore,
then Sorell iumps from thicket:
Or Pricket-sore, or els Sorell,
the people fall a hooting.
If Sore be sore, then el to Sore,
makes fiftie sores o sorell:
Of one sore I an hundred make 1225
by adding but one more l.
Nath. A rare talent.
Dull. If a talent be a claw, looke how he clawes him
with a talent. 1229
[I don’t know who gives the fullest explication of the sexual punning in these lines but I credit Martin Green. Capell ‘instantly’ saw the possibilities in the title of the poem. Herbert A. Ellis gives an amazing rundown of the whole play.]
Nath. This is a gyft that I haue simple: simple, a foolish
extrauagant spirit, full of formes, figures, shapes, obiectes,
Ideas, aprehentions, motions, reuolutions. These are begot in
the ventricle of Memorie, nourisht in the wombe of prima-
ter, and deliuered vpon the mellowing of occasion: But the
gyft is good in those whom it is acute, and I am thankfull
for it. 1236
Holo. Sir, I prayse the L. for you, and so may my parishi-
oners, for their Sonnes are well tuterd by you, and their
Daughters profite very greatly vnder you: you are a good
member of the common wealth. 1240
Nath. Me hercle, yf their Sonnes be ingenous, they shal
want no instruction: If their Daughters be capable, I will
put it to them. But Vir sapis qui pauca loquitur, a soule Femi-
nine saluteth vs.
[In these and the following lines Q1 assigns the pedant’s speeches to the curate and vice versa. In authorial manuscripts every prefix would contradict such errors unless there were no s.p.’s at all. Is that circumstance credible through many changes of speakers (and over many playtexts)? Yes, say the foul-paper people—Shakespeare didn’t bother to assign speeches. Alternatively, stenographers and their editors had no choice: they identified speakers from dialogue, when mistakes couldn’t be avoided.]
Enter Iaquenetta and the Clowne.
Iaquenetta God giue you good morrow M. Person.
Nath. Maister Person, quasi Person? And if one shoulde
be perst, Which is the one? (head
Clo. Marrie M. Scholemaster, he that is liklest to a hoggs-
Nath. Of persing a Hogshead, a good luster of conceit
in a turph of Earth, Fier enough for a Flint, Pearle enough
for a Swine: tis prettie, it is well.
Iaque. Good M. Parson be so good as read me this letter,
it was geuen me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armatho:
I beseech you read it. 1256
Nath. Facile precor gellida, quando pecas omnia sub vmbra ru-
minat, and so foorth. Ah good olde Mantuan, I may speake
of thee as the traueiler doth of Venice, vemchie, vencha, que non
te vnde, que non te perreche. Olde Mantuan, olde Mantuan,
Who vnderstandeth thee not, loues thee not, vt re sol la mi fa:
Vnder pardon sir, What are the contentes? or rather as Hor-
race sayes in his, What my soule verses.
[Shakespeare didn’t care to punctuate, either: ‘. . . as Horace says in his—What? My soul! Verses!’ (Theobald); stenographers couldn’t take time for punctuation. The difference is that shorthand reports will have pointing problems while “foul papers” must excuse them.]
Holo. I sir, and very learned. 1264
Nath. Let me heare a staffe, a stauze, a verse, Lege domine.
If Loue make me forsworne, how shall I sweare to loue?
Ah neuer fayth could hold, yf not to beautie vowed.
Though to my selfe forsworne, to thee Ile faythfull proue.
Those thoughts to me were Okes, to thee like Osiers bowed
Studie his byas leaues, and makes his booke thine eyes.
Where all those pleasures liue, that Art would comprehend.
If knowledge be the marke, to know thee shall suffise.
Well learned is that tongue, that well can thee commend.
All ignorant that soule, that sees thee without wonder.
Which is to mee some prayse, that I thy partes admire,
Thy eie Ioues lightning beares, thy voyce his dreadful thũder
Which not to anger bent, is musique, and sweete fier.
Celestiall as thou art, Oh pardon loue this wrong [woug Qu],
That singes heauens prayse, with such an earthly tong.
Pedan. You finde not the apostraphas, and so misse the
accent. Let me superuise the cangenet. 1285
Nath. Here are onely numbers ratefied, but for the ele-
gancie, facilitie, and golden cadence of poesie caret: Ouiddius
Naso was the man. And why in deed Naso, but for smel-
ling out the odoriferous flowers of fancie? the ierkes of in-
uention imitarie is nothing: So doth the Hound his maister,
the Ape his keeper, the tyred Horse his rider: But Damosella
virgin, Was this directed to you?
[At 1264 Nathaniel speaks (not Holofernes); at 1265 Holofernes (not Nathaniel) asks Nathaniel to read the verses; at 1266 Nathaniel reads, ‘finding not the apostraphas,’ as the pedant says, who asks to see the canzonet at 1285, and who finds ‘only numbers ratified’ (proper meter). That is, Q1 gets almost all the prefixes wrong. With authorial speech headings in Q1 copy, these mistakes would have been virtually impossible.]
Iaq. I sir from one mounsier Berowne, one of the strange
Queenes Lordes. 1295
Nath. I will ouerglaunce the superscript.
To the snow-white hand of the most bewtious Lady Rosaline.
I will looke againe on the intellect of the letter, for the no-
mination of the partie written to the person written vnto.
Your Ladiships in all desired imployment, Berowne.
Ped. Sir Holofernes, this Berowne is one of the Votaries
with the King, and here he hath framed a letter to a sequent
of the stranger Queenes: which accidentally, or by the way
of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and goe my sweete,
deliuer this Paper into the royall hand of the King, it may
concerne much: stay not thy complement, I forgine thy
dewtie, adue. 1307
Mayd. Good Costard go with me: sir God saue your life.
Cost. Haue with thee my girle. Exit.
Holo. Sir you haue done this in the feare of God verie reli-
giously: and as a certaine Father saith
Ped. Sir tell not mee of the Father, I do feare colourable
coloures. But to returne to the Verses, Did they please you
sir Nathaniel?
Nath. Marueilous well for the pen.
Peda. I do dine to day at the fathers of a certaine pupill of
mine, where if (before repast) it shall please you to gratifie
the table with a Grace, I will on my priuiledge I haue with
the parentes of the foresaid childe or pupill, vndertake your
bien venuto, where I will proue those Verses to be very vn-
learned, neither sauouring of Poetrie, wit, nor inuention.
I beseech your societie.
Nath. And thanke you to: for societie (saith the text)
is the happines of life.
Peda. And certes the text most infallibly concludes it.
Sir I do inuite you too, you shall not say me nay: pauca verba.
Away, the gentles are at their game, and we will to our re-
creation. Exeunt.
This passage is hard for editors; solutions are iffy. Hudson describes the mysteries as “stark nonsense” but he teams with Theobald, Daniel, and others to find improvements. Furness explains the key: “In view of the confusion in the distribution of the speeches . . . it seems permissible . . . to add other instances”. Presumably, emendation is also permissible because reassigning the speeches doesn’t solve every problem. And it may help to suppose that agents attempting to set the prefixes right actually caused further problems. Shorthand invites error and correction; “foul papers” accepts stark nonsense as Shakespearian. From Furness:
“Inasmuch as Jaquenetta had already said that the letter was sent to her from ‘Don Armatho,’ her present assertion presents a difficulty which is not diminished when she adds that Berowne was ‘one of the strange Queen’s Lords.’” P. A. Daniel adopts Theobald’s conjectural ‘from one Berowne *to* one of the strange Queen’s *Ladies*’. Daniel allows ‘I sir’ to Jaquenetta but gives the rest of her line to Nathaniel, who “had already overread the letter.” The ‘maid’ could not read and her interest was in Armado (the father of her baby).
All editors assign ‘I will overglance . . .’ to Holofernes. The rest, down to ‘adue’, seems to be his also. But in the next scene (4.3) Jaquenetta implies that it was Nathaniel who sent her to the King with the letter. She could have got her impression of the parson’s opinion that the letter was treasonous only during this scene. Arden3 suggests the confusions indicate revision. That’s no explanation.
Q1 assigns 1301 to the pedant, who begins, ‘Sir Holofernes’. But Holofernes is the pedant. No matter how this mistake occurred, the compositor seems not to have tumbled to the identity. Modern acceptance of ‘Sir Nathaniel’ (Theobald) may be wrong. If different hands added s.p.’s then Holofernes could have been a redundancy mistaken for dialogue when it was meant as a replacement for pedant. When the compositor can’t be accused of analyzing the prefixes in any case, there is no reason to suppose he even knew who was who. Nevertheless, I favor another solution based on my presumption that a phonetic shorthand system will generally reproduce something near to the performance: Nathaniel could be rendered Holofernes only by an actor’s unlikely error. Interestingly (not to everyone), this same mistake is assumed at 5.1.110:
Bra. Sir, it is the Kings most sweete pleasur & affection, 1822
to congratulate the Princesse at her Pauilion, in the posteriors
of this day, which the rude multitude call the after-noone.
Peda. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable,
congruent, and measurable for the after noone: the worde is
well culd, chose, sweete, & apt I do assure you sir, I do assure.
Brag. . . . . . I do implore 1842
secretie, that the King would haue me present the Princesse
(sweete chuck) with some delightfull ostentation, or show,
or pageant, or antique, or fierworke: Now vnderstanding
that the Curate and your sweete selfe, are good at such erup-
tions, and sodaine breaking out of myrth (as it were) I haue
acquainted you withall, to the ende to craue your assistance.
Peda. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies, 1850
Sir Holofernes, as concerning some entertainement of time,
some show in the posterior of this day, to be rended by our
assistants the Kinges commaund, and this most gallant il-
lustrate and learned Gentleman, before the Princesse: I say
none so fit as to present the nine Worthies. 1855
Curat. Where will you finde men worthie enough to pre-
sent them?
Peda. Iosua, your selfe, my selfe, and this gallant Gentle-
man Iudas Machabeus; this Swaine (because of his great lim
or ioynt) shall passe Pompey the great, the Page Hercules. 1861
At 5.2.600 Berowne refers to ‘The Pedant, the Braggart, the Hedge-Priest the Foole, and the Boy,’ by which (with similar references) the dialogue identifies the speakers. The headings, therefore, needn’t be Shakespeare’s own.
Armado and Holofernes trade pleasantries. However, we shouldn’t assume that Holofernes is perfectly serious with the “braggart”; many of the play’s characters are quick to notice others’ defects while keeping up their own absurd ways. At 1851 Holofernes again seems to refer to himself before repeating his and Armado’s phrasing. As in 4.2, editors emend the reference to ‘Nathaniel’.
The likelihood is that after Holofernes proposes “The Nine Worthies,” the lines following 1850 belong instead to Nathaniel, who also has some fun with the braggart’s style before agreeing to the presentation: ‘Sir Holofernes’ is addressed to the curate’s friend and the casting question ends his speech. Editors think that only Nathaniel merits the title, but as the two repeatedly address each other by Sir, I see no reason to bar it here. Besides, an audience needs a name now and then; in performance the player may supply one on his own.
Editors also note the corrupt assignment of the “Worthy” roles by Holofernes (without much success in its correction). Reprinting a bad quarto, Q1 obviously inherits mistakes; but reports suffer from their share of printer’s errors. In this case I suspect Holofernes is meant to say, ‘Joshua, yourself [Nathaniel]; myself, Judas Maccabaeus; this gallant gentleman, Hector; this Swain . . . and the page, Hercules.’ If by eyeskip (one haecceity to another) ‘this . . . Hector’ was lost, found, and miscorrected in the earlier edition; then neither Q1 nor Shakespeare originated the error. It isn’t necessary for this guess to be right for it to show how common error accounts for text better than authorial revision when nonsensical anomaly is the only evidence. Applying the 5.1 inference to 4.2, ‘Sir Holofernes’ probably begins Nathaniel’s speech for this sequence:
Nathaniel. Sir Holofernes, this Berowne is one of the Votaries
with the King.
Holofernes. And here he hath framed a letter to a sequent
of the stranger Queenes: which accidentally, or by the way
of progression, hath miscarried.
Nathaniel. Trip and goe my sweete, deliuer this Paper into
the royall hand of the King, it may concerne much.
Holofernes. Stay not thy complement, I forgine thy dewtie, adue.
Mayd. Good Costard go with me: sir God saue your life.
Cost. Haue with thee my girle. Exit.
Holo. Sir you haue done this in the feare of God verie reli-
giously: and as a certaine Father saith—
Nathaniel. Sir tell not mee of the Father, I do feare colourable
coloures.
Holo. But to returne to the Verses, Did they please you
sir Nathaniel?
Nath. Marueilous well for the pen.
Correction of the s.p.’s solves a lot of the problems. Arden3 suggests that “either Jaquenetta is alarmingly confused or Shakespeare was.” But these are transmission issues: 1) ‘Sir Holofernes’ is right. 2) The curate directs the (former) maid to the King, as she says. 3) The flowery language is the pedant’s. 4) The ‘religious’ compliment is directed to the curate, who respects God and the King. 5) It’s Nathaniel who fears ‘certain fathers,’ who may not be of the official persuasion. 6) It isn’t Nathaniel’s style to say, ‘Stay not thy complement, I forgive thy duty, adieu.’ Arden3 (and others) take this to mean something like, “never mind the niceties of your farewell.” But Holofernes is just being himself: “Don’t delay completion (= complement) of your task; I make it (forgive = give) your duty.”
Q1 LLL (1598) is almost always taken to be printed from Shakespeare’s holograph manuscript. That’s the only way to skirt the issues—but with this play scholars seem not even to be aware of the issues. Arden3 cites Werstine’s detailed 1984 bibliographical argument to the effect that Q1 is a reprint, which “in turn argues . . . that a putative lost earlier quarto may not have been a ‘bad’ one” (306). That doesn’t follow: a reprint of a bad quarto is still a bad quarto and evidence of reporting may remain. In LLL it is manifest.
I suspect Woudhuysen follows Werstine, who concluded that “if the first printing of LLL served as printer’s copy for the entire first extant quarto . . . the first printing must have been a good quarto, not a bad one.” By good quarto in this instance Werstine must mean “foul paper” copy: few suppose LLL is a finished product. From 1990 on, Werstine forcefully argues against foul papers as a concept with any likelihood of historical occurrence. I presume he has changed his mind about this play and his earlier statement.
I follow my hero van Dam to think that LLL was finished, played, revised, reported, printed, and reprinted. Throughout, the play preserved remarkable wordplay—enough to preclude editorial thought of shorthand transmission. However, I believe good productions were well reported, as was John of Bordeaux; its lessons are all-important.
Though LLL is by almost all standards one of a kind, there are two mutually exclusive categories wherein this phenomenon is one of many. Printed from “foul papers,” Q1 finds itself grouped with other Shakespeare texts only because it is problematic but not answermatic. Never mind that the texts aren’t alike in other respects because foul papers knows no boundaries; rough drafts subdue evidence like The Blob. Now it’s OK to make up categories because everything has to be categorized. But when the upshot is to set thought aside there’s no scholarly point. Let the evidence out and we see none of it supports even a definition of the group, much less a guide to study the texts, other than individually and blindly. “Shakespeare was out of town.”
As a shorthand report (we are allowed our personal categories, mind you), Q1 is subject to testing by shared criteria that allow its other characteristics to come through almost intact. Recognizing traits of reporting in a playtext doesn’t set it apart from others in the same fix. Rather we are handed the tools to solve many problems and the tools can be handed back; continuous threads link reports.
Absent the foul-papers mind-set the speech ascription problems, of which I have noted only a portion, are sure signs of reporting. Recognition of this probability could lead to solutions of the major cruxes of the play. As with R&J, the near certainty that LLL derives from another corrupt text allows transmission a more likely cause of error than authorial bumbling.
Speech headings weren’t left out because Shakespeare ‘tripped and goed’to Anne or because Fletcher was a dope. At least, we can’t know these causes. But shorthand omitted prefixes by necessity and there happen to be a lot of plays with mixed-up or late-added speech headings: Bordeaux, Lear, Woodstock, Philaster, etc. Reporting explains these errors (and more).
Reports were fair game for printing and reprinting. Editing varied and sometimes went awry. I suppose the other muddles in LLL (e.g. the “Katherine/Rosaline Tangle”) might be explained by shorthand transmission and printers’ goofs. It might even be easy.
Gerald E. Downs