MARLOWE AND SHAKESPEARE : THREE EMENDATIONS

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  • MARLOWEとSHAKESPEARE : 三つのEMENDATIONS
  • Marlowe ト Shakespeare ミッツ ノ Emendations

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I (1) Ferneze, speake, had it not beene much better To kept thy promise then be thus surpriz'd?-The Jew of Malta, 2105 Emendations for 'To kept' in the above Marlovian passage are as follows: (2) a. To 've kept (Cunningham, Bennett) b. To keepe (Wagner) c. To haue kept (Tucker Brooke) d. T'have kept (Bullen, Ellis, Craik) Similarly 'heard' in the following Shakespearian passage is altered to 'hear' in such editions as Globe, Arden, and NS. (3) mary, I wad full faine heard some question tween you tway.-Hen. V, 3.2.127 These instances of a past participle may be ungrammatical from the point of PE grammar, but from ME to Early MnE to, would, or should are often followed by a past participle instead of a perfect infinitive-a fact which shows that such emendations as above must be rejected as uncalled for. This usage is also found in Scottish, Danish, MDu, and MHG. II In Elizabethan English 'scar' and 'scarre' could stand equally for the modern 'scar' or 'scare'. So it is quite possible for Irving Ribner to read. 'scar' in: (1) We are enough to scarre the enemy,-1 Tamburlaine, 662 (2) My father were enough to scar the foe,-2 Tamburlaine, 3692 and for Alexander Dyce to read 'scare' in: (3) Vp with him then, his body shalbe scard.-2 Tamburlaine, 4226 A closer examination of the context, however, reveals that their readings are out of place, for neither in Marlowe nor in Shakespeare can we find the collocations 'scar+a person' or 'scare+a thing'. The reason is simply that the semantic features of the two verbs are incompatible with such objects, i.e. 'scare' takes only an Animate object, while 'scar' takes only an Inanimate object. Here is a further evidence supporting the reading 'scare' in (1) and (2). It is crystal-clear that (4) is parallel to (1) and (2) in thought as well as in syntax, and that 'scarre' here means 'scare' as it does in the Latin: (4) These sad presages were enough to scarre The quiering Romans,-Lucan, 673 ('Terruerant satis haec pavidam praesagia plebem;') If 'scarre' in (4) means 'scare', then (1) and (2) must also mean 'scare'. My conjecture is that Marlowe, taking a fancy to the expression 'be enough to scare a person', which he had learned in his translation of Lucan, made use of it twice in (1) and (2), which he wrote later.

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