Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 - Various - Страница 6

Difficulty of avoiding Coincident Suggestions on the Text of Shakspeare.—A correspondent in Vol. viii., p. 193., is somewhat unnecessarily severe on Mr. Collier and Mr. Singer, for having overlooked some suggestions in Jackson's work: the enormous number of useless conjectures in that publication rendering it so tedious and unprofitable to consider them attentively, the student is apt to think his time better engaged in investigating other sources of information. I think, therefore, little of Mr. Collier overlooking the few coincident suggestions in Jackson, which are smaller in number than I had anticipated; the real cause for wonder consisting in the ignoring so many conjectures that have been treated of years ago, often at great length, by some of the most distinguished critics this country has produced. Generally speaking, however, there is in these matters such a tendency for reproduction, I should for one hesitate to accuse any critic of intentional unfairness, merely because he puts forth conjectures as new, when they have been previously published; and I have found so many of my own attempts at emendation, thought to be original, in other sources, that I now hesitate at introducing any as novel. These attempts, like most others, have only resulted occasionally in one that will bear the test of examination after it has been placed aside, and carefully considered when the impression of novelty has worn off. I think we may safely appeal to all critics who occupy themselves much with conjectural criticism, and ask them if Time does not frequently impair the complacency with which they regard their efforts on their first production.

Vol. viii., p. 216., contains more instances of coincident suggestions, R. H. C. indulging in two conjectures, both supported very ably, but in the perfect unconsciousness that the first, rude day's, was long since mentioned by Mr. Dyce, in his Remarks, 1844, p. 172., and that the second, the change of punctuation in All's Well that Ends Well, is the reading adopted by Theobald, and it is also introduced by Mr. Knight in the text of his "National Edition," p 262., and has, I believe, been mentioned elsewhere. It may be said that this kind of repetition might be obviated by the publication of the various readings that have been suggested in the text of Shakspeare, but who is there to be found Quixotic enough to undertake so large and thankless a task, one which at best can only be most imperfectly executed: the materials being so scattered, and often so worthless, the compiler would, I imagine, abandon the design before he had made great progress in it. No fair comparison can be entertained in this respect between the text of Shakspeare and the texts of the classic authors. What has happened to R. H. C., happens, as I am about to show, to all who indulge in conjectural criticism.

Any reader who will take a quantity of disputed passages in Shakspeare, and happens to be ignorant of what has been suggested by others, will discover that, in most of the cases, if he merely tries his skill on a few simple permutations of the letters, he will in one way or another stumble on the suggested words. Let us take, for example, what may be considered in its way as one of the most incomprehensible lines in Shakspeare—"Will you go, An-heires?" the last word being printed with a capital. Running down with the vowels from a, we get at once an apparently plausible suggestion, "Will you go on here?" but a little consideration will show how extremely unlikely this is to be the genuine reading, and that Mr. Dyce is correct in preferring Mynheers—a suggestion which belongs to Theobald, and not, as he mentions, to Hanmer. But what I maintain is, that on here would be the correction that would occur to most readers, in all probability to be at once dismissed. Mr. Collier, however, says "it is singular that nobody seems ever to have conjectured that on here might be concealed under An-heires;" and it would have been singular had this been the case, but the suggestion of on here is to be found in Theobald's common edition. Oddly enough, about a year before Mr. Collier's volume appeared, it was again suggested as if it were new.

Let us select a still more palpable instance (Measure for Measure, Act II. Sc. 1.): "If this law hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest house in it after threepence a bay." If this reading be wrong, which I do not admit, the second change in the first letter creates an obvious alteration, day, making at least some sort of sense, if not the correct one. Some years ago, I was rash enough to suggest day, not then observing the alteration was to be found in Pope's edition, and Mr. Collier has fallen into the same oversight, when he gives it as one of the corrector's new emendations. I regard these oversights as very pardonable, and inseparable from any extensive attempt to correct the state of the text. All Shakspearian conjectures either anticipate or are anticipated.

Mr. Dyce being par excellence the most judicious verbal critic of the day, it will scarcely be thought egotistical to claim for myself the priority for one of his emendations—"Avoid thee, friend," in the Few Notes, p. 31., a reading I had mentioned in print before the appearance of that work. This is merely one of the many evidences that all verbal conjecturers must often stumble on the same suggestions. Even the MS. corrector's alteration of the passage is not new, it being found in Pope's and in several other editions of the last century; another circumstance that exhibits the great difficulty and danger of asserting a conjecture to be absolutely unknown.

J. O. Halliwell

P.S. The subject is, of course, capable of almost indefinite extension, but the above hasty notes will probably occupy as much space as you would be willing to spare for its consideration.

Alcides' Shoes.—There is merit, in my opinion, in elucidating, if it were only a single word in our great dramatist. Even the attempt, though mayhap a failure, is laudable. I therefore have made, and shall make, hit or miss, some efforts that way. For example, I now grapple with that very odd line—

out of which no one has as yet extracted, or I think ever will extract, any good meaning: Argal, it is corrupt. Now it appears to me that the critic who proposed to read shows, came very near the truth, and would have hit it completely if he had retained Alcides', for it is the genitive with robe understood. To explain:

Austria has on him the "skin-coat" of Cœur-de-Lion, and Blanch cries,—

"It lies," observes the Bastard,

Were it not that doth is the usual word in this play, I might be tempted to read does. In reading or acting, then, the cæsura should be made at Alcides', with a slight pause to give the hearer time to supply robe. I need not say that the robe is the lion's skin, and that there is an allusion to the fable of the ass.

Now to justify this reading. Our ancestors knew nothing of our mode of making genitives by turned commas. They formed the gen. sing., and nom. and gen. pl., by simply adding s to the nom. sing.; thus king made kings, kings, kings (not king's, kings, kings'), and the context gave the case. If the noun ended in se, ce, she, or che, the addition of s added a syllable, as horses, princes, &c., but it was not always added. Shakspeare, for example, uses Lucrece and cockatrice as genitives. I find the first instances of such words as James's, &c., about the middle of the seventeenth century, but I am not deeply read in old books, so it may have been used earlier.

In foreign words like Alcides, no change ever took place; it was the same for all numbers and cases, and the explanation was left to the context. Here are a couple of examples from Shakspeare himself:

"To Brutus, to Cassius. Burn all. Some to Decius house, and some to Cascas; some to Ligarius. Away! go!"—Julius Cæsar, Act III. Sc. 3.

All here are genitives, as well as Cascas. If any doubt, Brutus and Cassius, we have just been told, "Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome," so they