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Poetaster: Textual Essay

David Bevington

Though these numbers are hardly decisive in themselves, other spelling preferences offer some support for these tentative assignments. Compositor A’s assignments in quires 2A and 2B display a discernible tendency in some cases to add an ‘e’ to words like fly/flye, think/thinke, six/sixe, pox/poxe, madam/madame, lack/lacke, intreat/intreate, wear/weare, stir/stirre, meats/meates, moods/moodes, and steals/steales, though forms without the final ‘e’ are generally much more common throughout the text. Similarly, in quires 2A and 2B (and also on Z6v, at the end of the previous quire) we find several instances where Compositor A has changed from ‘either’ to ‘eyther’, ‘maides’ to ‘maydes’, ‘dining’ to ‘dyning’, ‘alwaies’ to ‘alwayes’ (all four of these are on 2A6v), ‘prais’d’ to ‘prays’d’, ‘daies’ to ‘dayes’, ‘saies’ to ‘sayes’, and ‘die’ to ‘dye’, whereas throughout the text (including much of quires 2A and 2B) the marked preference is for changes in the other direction. This preference for ‘crye’ instead of Q’s ‘cry’, ‘plaies’ for ‘playes’, ‘ladie’ for ‘ladye’, etc., is especially noticeable in quire 2C and those pages of 2D (3r-4v) tentatively assigned in this analysis to Compositor B.

Compositor A, especially in his pages of quires 2A and 2B, tends to prefer spellings like ‘boldnesse’, ‘sonne’, ‘clogge’, ‘gemme’, ‘trimme’, ‘conferre’, ‘preferre’, ‘deferre’, and ‘stirres’, where Q has ‘boldnes’, ‘son’, ‘clog’, and the like. (There are individual counter-instances on 2A2v and 2B1v, 2r, and 5r.) These changes also turn up in what may be Compositor A’s stint in 2D, on 2v, 5r, and 5v, and also on 2D2v and 5r. Changes in the other direction, from Q’s ‘dogges’ to ‘dogs’, ‘beginne’ to ‘begin’, ‘swimme’ to ‘swim’, ‘penne’ to ‘pen’, ‘skilles’ to ‘skils’, ‘varlettes’ to ‘varlets’, ‘ramme’ to ‘ram’, ‘ragges’ to ‘rags’, ‘stirre’ to ‘stir’, ‘Mistresse’ to ‘mistris’, ‘worshippe’ to ‘worship’, etc., are to be found especially on 2C1r, 2v, 2v, 3v, and 4v, and 2D3r, all on pages tentatively assigned here to Compositor B. Quire 2F perhaps shows a similar preference, at least in some of its pages, with ‘quit’ for ‘quitte’ and ‘varlets’ for Q’s ‘Varlettes’ (4r) and ‘worship’ for ‘worshippe’ (4v).

Spellings like ‘hopefull’ in place of Q’s ‘hopeful’, ‘will’ for ‘wil’, ‘well’ for ‘wel’, ‘tell’ and ‘tells’ for ‘tel’ and ‘tels’, ‘fill’d’ for ‘fil’d’, ‘shall’ for ‘shal’, ‘intollerable’ for ‘intolerable’, ‘subtell’ for ‘subtel’, ‘all’ for ‘al’, and ‘pills’ for ‘pils’ show up substantially often in Compositor A’s stints in quires 2A and 2B as compared with only two instances of the reverse (‘farewel’ for ‘farewell’ and ‘cal’ for ‘call’). The double ‘ll’ also appears in what may be Compositor A’s stint on 2C6v (‘will’ for ‘wil’), and, in quire 2D, on 2r and 5r (‘violl’ for ‘Viole’, ‘subtill’ for ‘subtil’, and ‘fills’ for ‘fils’). Conversely, ‘skils’ for Q’s ‘skilles’ turn up on 2C2v, and ‘wel’ for ‘well’ on 2F3r, on pages tentatively assigned here to the Compositor B. Counter-examples are not hard to find, however, so that the positions taken here are tentative.

Compositor A seems to have had a preference for ‘ieast’ in place of Q’s ‘iest’, as on 2D2v and 5r, paired together on a single forme, and on 2E1, perhaps suggesting that this compositor worked on the first forme of quire 2E. This spelling, ‘ieast’, printed thus 6 times, occurs nowhere else in F1; it is repeatedly ‘iest’ in Q. This same compositor may have preferred ‘cousin’ for Q’s ‘cosen’; the change occurs 9 times, on 2A5v-2B1, all in Compositor A’s pages of quires 2A and 2 B, and then five times on 2D2, with no contrary instances. The spelling change to ‘punke’ from Q’s ‘Punque’ turns up fairly often in the Compositor A’s stints, on 2A2 and 2D2 (4 times), as well as 2E1 and 2F2v, but also on 2D4v, tentatively and uncertainly assigned here to Compositor B. Compositor A may have favoured ‘hearts’ for Q’s ‘harts’, ‘household’ for ‘houshold’, ‘onely’ for ‘only’, ‘idely’ for ‘idly’, ‘feuers’ for ‘feauers’, ‘cleare’ for ‘cleere’, ‘sudden’ for ‘sudaine’, ‘moost’ for ‘most’, ‘choose’ for ‘chuse’, ‘told’ for ‘tould’, ‘sute’ for ‘suit’ or ‘suite’, and ‘swaggerer’ for ‘swaggrer’, all in quires 2A and 2B. A shift from ‘foorth’ in Q to ‘foorth’ occurs on Z6, 2A5, 2E1v, 2E5v, and 2F6, all pages tentatively assigned here to Compositor A. The spellings ‘shaddowes’ and ‘shaddow’ in place of Q’s ‘shadows’ and ‘shadow’ on 2E2 and 2E6 occur on pages assigned here to Compositor A. Compositor B may have gravitated to ‘bloud’ for Q’s ‘blood’ (7 times in all, on 2C1, 2D4, and 2E2v and 3r), with no changing of ‘blood’ to ‘bloud’ elsewhere in F1; however, the spelling ‘blouddie’ turns up on 2A6v in what is tentatively assigned in this analysis to Compositor A. Compositor B may have favoured ‘bold’ for ‘bould’, as on 2C4v.

Quire 2E presents some spellings that elsewhere seem characteristic of Compositor B: dregs (1v), bloud (2r, 3r), swim (3v), begin (5v), we (3r), he (4v). On other pages in 2E, we find spellings characteristic of the Compositor A (shee, bee, starres, sharpnesse, summe). Quire 2F, as indicated above, seems to have received the attention at times of the Compositor B, with spellings like worship, varlets, quit, wel, we, me, sodaine, libell, and bloud, especially on 2F3r-4v.