The Antipodes
Textual Essay1The Antipodes was entered “for [Francis] Constable” in the Stationers’ Register on 19th March 1640 (in old-style dating, 1639) for publication along with The Sparagus Garden and a play long-since lost Wit in a Madness. All three plays entered “under the hands of Doctor wykes & Mr. ffetherston warden” were described as “[by Ric deleted].”n11291 The three plays continued to be grouped together in further legal transactions, when first on February 17th, 1648, Constable’s widow, Alice, transferred twenty of her late husband’s copyrights to Richard Thrale; and again on 11th April, 1681 when Thrale’s widow, Dorothy, transferred forty-two titles to Benjamin Thrale. The deletion of the surname after “Ric[hard]” may suggest, as it did to G.E. Bentley, that the play was not actually by Brome at all and that the deletion corrects a mistake in the register.n11292 There is no further allusion to the play other than these three entries in the Stationers’ Register.2The Antipodes was published as a quarto during 1640 with the following titlepage:THE / ANTIPODES: // A COMEDIE. // Acted in the yeare 1638. by the Queenes/ Majesties Servants, at Salisbury / Court in Fleet-street. // The Author Richard Brome // Hic totus volo rideat Libellus. Mart. // LONDON: / Printed by J. Okes, for Francis Constable, and / are to be sold at his shops in Kings- / street at the signe of the Goat, / and in Westminster-hall. 1640.3The quotation from Martial’s Epigrams (11.15) was popular with Brome: it occurs on the title pages of all four independently issued quartos that appeared in the dramatist’s lifetime (The Northern Lass, The Sparagus Garden, The Antipodes and A Jovial Crew), though only the two mentioned in the one entry in the Stationers’ Register, cited above, shared the same printer.n11293 This motto translates as “I wish this little book to laugh throughout its entirety” (Martial’s epigram continues with the hope that it will be much naughtier than his previous works). The volume collates A-L4v resulting in forty-four unnumbered leaves. The title is on A1r; the dedicatory epistle on A2r and A2v; a commendatory poem by “C.G.” occupies A3r, followed surprisingly by the Prologue on A3v (the evidence of the catchwords on this and the surrounding pages suggest that (in Greg’s words) “the type of A3v and A4r [have] been accidentally transposed”.n11294 A second commendatory poem by Robert Chamberlain follows on A4r and an (accurate) listing of “The Persons in the Play” on A4v. Different kinds of lace or brocade-like designs head this and the first page of the opening act, which is numbered B1. Act One runs from B1r to D2r; Act Two from D2r to E4v; Act Three from F1r to H1r; Act Four from H1v to K1v; and Act Five from K1v to L4v. No more ornaments decorate pages after the beginning of Act One; and the volume concludes with a short note to the “Courteous Reader” from the author, Richard Brome, which follows directly after the Epilogue.n11295 The running title, The Antipodes, is consistent throughout all pages of the playtext and always in italic. The one variation relates to the font used for the capitals “T” and “A”, which are mostly simple and true italic but are occasionally decorated with flourishes. With the exception of the leaves involving the curious placement of the Prologue in relation to the commendatory poems, the catchwords are all clear and accurate. As these details suggest, the printing demonstrates a careful attention to accuracy and the result is a remarkably clean text. (Only one major error is apparent in the setting and that is on B2v, where the stage direction that should have marked the Doctor’s entrance reads “Ex. Doctor” [AN 1.1.line138].) As might be supposed (given that there is a major character included in the action who goes by the name of Joyless, which is often rendered in the text as “Ioylesse”) the compositor(s) faced problems at times with a shortage of the letter “I” in its capitalised form: the solution was to resort to using an upper case “J” in roman or italic font. 4The main difficulty faced by the compositors related to space. The text of The Antipodes is long and this began to make an impact as the setting reached the fourth and fifth acts. The setting of the first three acts is spacious in its layout: the second half-line completing a verse line shared between two speakers is generally set as an independent line of text; stage directions are mostly centred (though exits are tidied neatly into the righthand margin), and in consequence it is clear where scenes begin and end; short directions relating to the actions of a character are usually set in italic in the right hand margin. See, for example, the instruction that Martha should burst into tears during her talk with Barbara [AN 1.4.line305], where the direction “weepe.” is set hard right and adjacent to the third line of her speech; or when in 3.2. the Lawyer attempts to interpret the Poet’s badly handwritten list of poems for which he seeks remuneration, where the direction “Reads” is placed alongside and to the right of the first line of his speech in which he struggles to decipher words [AN 3.2.line1267]. Offstage sound effects are generally indicated by directions which are similarly placed over to the right, as when, for example, the actors of the play-within-the-play return to their stage after the act break at the start of 3.2. where there is instruction for a “Flourish” [AN 3.1.line1245]. These formatting techniques are fairly standard practice in the printing of playtexts at this period.5Mistakes do occur, however. The occasional scene division is missed, such as at Martha’s entry to Barbara at the start of what should be 1.4. The quarto overall deploys classical scene-numbering, marking a new scene whenever a new character joins with those already onstage (Brome may well have been following Jonson’s example in this); this practice makes for a large number of scenes and, as will be shown later in the text, for some confusion. In the instance of Martha’s entry a number of complex actions occur: first the Doctor, Joyless and Blaze who have been present in 1.3. leave (their exit is marked in the righthand margin as “Ex. 3.”); Barbara has a line that is clearly directed at their departing figures (“You’ll finde enough within I warrant yee”); and Martha enters (“Ent. Mar.”) [AN 1.3.lines257-258]. This instruction is laid out directly under the exit direction for the three men. Having appeared to spectators, Martha is then silent for some twelve verse lines while Barbara muses over the girl’s sad condition and confides her thoughts on unconsummated marriages to the audience (it is possible that the actress playing Martha had some mimed business to motivate the stages of Barbara’s concern); Martha begins to speak only when Barbara directly addresses her (“Sweet Mistris Joylesse, how is’t with you now?”) at line 270. There ought to be a scene division at the point of Martha’s entrance for consistency, but none occurs (perhaps the compositor was foxed by her long silence, though one would have expected that what amounts to a combined exit and entrance would have alerted him to the need to make a division; or perhaps no such division had been recorded in his copy text). At the end of the scene for the two women, the stage clears with their exit; and noticeably the compositor rightly numbers the next scene division as “Act. 1. Scene. 5.”, which is placed centrally and distinctly.6Other instances where scene divisions are not placed centrally but over to the right appear to relate to a perceived need not to disrupt the dramatic tempo (either in a reading or performance). A notable instance of this occurs when Blaze enters, just as the Doctor has begun preparing Peregrine in imagination to embark on his voyage; they are about to drink to their success when Blaze’s appearance sets Peregrine quaking with fear. Clearly the new arrival onstage should require a scene division but the timing of the entrance has to be exact and it falls in the middle of Peregrine’s verse line: “Gi’ mee’t [the bowl of wine]. What’s he? One sent /I feare from my dead mother…” Clearly the entrance should occur directly before “What’s he?” A scene division inserted precisely at that point would make for a messy layout and seriously disrupt the flow of the verse and the excitement of the dramatic moment. The placing of the scene break and the direction for Blaze’s entrance into the right hand margin is a neat solution to the problem [AN 1.7.line696]. A similar instance, where a scene break and an entrance would fall into the gap between two half-lines that are shared between two speakers, occurs when the Old Lady arrives to castigate her errant Gentleman-husband. Peregrine has enquired what is going on and how he is to interpret it and the Doctor explains the significance of the scene that has been enacted before them as they watch the Gentleman standing bemused by his predicament. Hardly has the Doctor finished speaking than the Old Lady enters and a new focus of interest is established: he speaks the first part of a verse line and she the second. By a shrewd compromise, the scene division is set to the far right alongside the half-line that concludes his speech, while the instruction for her entrance with Byplay is placed directly beneath this and alongside her first words [AN 2.7.lines1025-1030].n112967All the details of formatting that make possible a clear and dramatic reading of the text throughout the first three acts changes in the remaining two where the pressures of a finite book-length begin to be felt. What were notable exceptions (as outlined above) begin now to become standard practice. Though overall this printing of The Antipodes remains a remarkably clean text, the formatting and page layout for the last two acts is less reader-friendly than formerly as features become more compressed. Where a verse line is divided between two speakers, it is now printed as a single line of text containing, if necessary, one or, if necessary, two speech prefixes. There is one instance on I3r where three speakers (Peregrine, Byplay and Omnes) share the verse line (as Peregrine’s words are the conclusion of a longer speech the first four words do not bear his speech prefix):Ile hang yee all.Byp. Mercy great King.Omnes. O mercy.
[AN 4.8.line2301].n112978In the fourth act this change starts from H4v and from this page to the end of the act at K1v all scene divisions as well as stage directions are moved into the right hand margin, starting with “Act 4. Sc.6. Ent. 3.Court.” Lengthy stage directions, which are so disposed in the margin and which cover some seven lines, have the whole direction bracketed together. This is particularly noticeable on I1v, where two such complex directions are placed one directly above the other with a scene division heading the second [AN 4.8.lines2194-2208].n112989Act Five starts well with what looks like a return to the original formatting practice: the first five scene divisions are all placed centrally, but the fifth of these falls out of the correct ordering in being described as “Act. 5. Scene 2.” In terms of modern scene numbering this is accurate, since it marks a complete change of location after the stage has been cleared of characters; but generally throughout the text classical scene numbering obtains. This poses issues for the compositor(s). There are now two scenes designated Act 5. Scene 2, the second of which ought properly to be numbered Act 5 Scene 5. When the next scene break occurs, the compositor plays safe and virtually admits his confusion, since it is headed, “Act.5.Sce.” with no scene number (it should actually be scene 6). The next such division is numbered “Act.5. Sc.6.” when it should be Scene 7 and, though the numbering continues in sequence after this from 7 to 10, in each case the number assigned is inaccurate, since the sequence should properly run from 8 to 11. After L1r, the scene divisions are pushed into the right hand margins and accompany any stage directions requiring a character’s entrance. This can occasionally lead to confusion, especially when it coincides with a line shared by two speakers and which in consequence includes at least one speech prefix. A notable instance of this occurs on L1r, where the scene break occurs precisely when Joyless enters convinced of Diana’s innocence, and (because that entrance interrupts Letoy’s speech) his all-important “No” is placed with its speech prefix on the line immediately below the direction marking his entrance (the final words of Diana’s speech open the extract):And in that faith ile dye.Act. 5. Sce
Let. She is invincible!Ent. Ioyleſſe and Byplay.
Come ile relate you to your huſband.Ioy. No,
[AN 5.6.lines2770-2771]n1129910From that same page (L1r) verse lines shared between two or more speakers again begin to be set as one line of text, whereas in the earlier scenes from this act each speaker’s contribution is set on a separate line. One has a clearer sense of the continuities of the verse in consequence, but at a certain loss of instant clarity over who is speaking when. Whereas there is only a handful of examples of this way of setting shared lines in each of the three opening acts, some sense of the degree to which they proliferate is to be gauged from the fact that they number forty-one in Act 4 and again in Act 5.n11300 Though throughout the play thirty-nine lines of text per page is maintained, one has the visual impression that from H4v to K1r of Act 4 and from L1r to L4v of Act 5 each page has a more crowded aspect than is the case elsewhere. Brome’s final note to the “Courteous Reader” is set in the small-scale italic font used normally for stage directions, which does rather detract from its importance: it seems more a postscript than a deliberate statement of his reasons for publishing the play in its current form, which contains considerably more material than any theatregoer who chances now to be a reader will recall from the performances.11The fact that the text is in this expanded form, reflecting the size of the comedy that Brome actually composed rather than what was acted at Salisbury Court, suggests that the copy text used by the compositor(s) for the type-setting was most likely either the playwright’s foul papers or a neat copy of them by a scribe or even by Brome himself, who (to judge by the manuscript of The English Moor in Lichfield Cathedral Library) possessed a fair hand.n11301 There are a number of substantiating factors to support this view. There are none of the ragged joins either in narrative continuity or in speech sequences to suggest that the printed text is picking up after an omission or that material formerly cut is being reintroduced, nor are there repetitions occasioned by joins designed to link passages falling either side of an excision. The quarto text has an absolute cohesion. There is too an oddity in the printed text, which a theatre prompt copy would doubtless have ironed out: the variety of speech prefixes assigned to the character Quailpipe. In the listing of “The Persons in the Play”, this character is situated directly after Letoy and is described as “his [Letoy’s] Curate”. At his first appearance in 1.5, when he enters to bid Letoy come to dinner, he is given the speech prefix “Re.”[AN 1.5.lines439-442]. A speech of Barbara’s in 2.5 shortly after Quailpipe has delivered the Prologue to the play-within-the-play explains what this abbreviation might stand for:’Tis my Lords Reader, and as good a lad
Out of his function, as I would desire
To mixe withal in civill conversation.
[AN 2.5.lines998-1000]12As a curate, Quailpipe would be required to read the lessons in Letoy’s private chapel and maybe say grace at table: it is his “function” as “reader” that is indicated therefore by the speech prefix, “Re.”. Though at the start of the play-within-the-play there occurs the stage direction, “Enter Quailpipe, Prologue”, at the conclusion of his speech his departure is marked as “Ex. Prol.” (E1v) [AN 2.5.lines976-296]. At the start of 4.11 a further change to the character’s prefix occurs: Letoy has a momentary lapse into forgetfulness but rapidly recovers himself with the lines: “I had almost /Forgot to send my chaplaine after them.”; and he summons Quailpipe: “You Domine where are you?” and the character is required to enter “in /a fantasticall shape”. His initial response to Letoy (“Here my Lord.”) bears the speech prefix “Qua.”; Letoy enquires why Quailpipe is dressed up (“What in that shape?”) and the character replies: “’Tis for my part my Lord, /Which is not all perform’d.” For these words he is given the speech prefix, “Chap.” (chaplain) but the prefixing reverts to “Quai.” for his next and last speech in the scene and this is how he is named in the stage direction marking his exit [AN 4.11.lines2413-2429]. His three speeches in 5.8 carry the prefix “Qua.”, though his name is given in full on his entrance. This kind of uncertainty over what precise prefix to use to designate a minor character who makes a number of short appearances throughout the action is generally considered to be an indication that the copy text used for the setting is reasonably close to an authorial manuscript of some type. This is the view adopted by Ann Haaker in her comments on the text that conclude the introduction to her edition:The “allowed original” in the appended note and the anticipatory stage directions suggests that the copy for the quarto was almost certainly the author’s papers, or a transcript of these…n1130213Unfortunately she mars this interpretation by adding: “…or a transcript of these, which had been used as a theatrical promptbook”. While the internal evidence would certainly support the first part of Haaker’s hypothesis, it would not support the second part, since a promptbook, as a performance text, would presumably have marked the cuts that the actors, according to Brome’s note, made to the play in whatever form they received it from him; and there is no evidence to indicate the presence of such cutting in the copy text. Brome’s final note to the reader (in itself a rare instance of a playwright’s overt presence in his text) suggests he had a proprietorial interest in the publication as presenting his full composition, which he takes care to separate from the version played by the actors. Perhaps this close interest accounts for the cleanliness of the quarto and the fact that extant copies carry only a few press variants.14Copies of the Quarto survive in the following collections (reference numbers are included, where known):U.K.
BL [644.d.32] [162.c.13] (British Library)
Bodl. [Mal. 168] (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford)
Dyce [25.A.52] (Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London)
Eton [1] [2] (Eton College Library)
NLS [Bute.52] [H.28.e.9(4)] (National Library of Scotland)
Wise (BL) [Ashley 151] (Ashley Library, British Library)
Worc. [2 copies] (Worcester College, Oxford)
U.S.A.
Boston [G.3810.63] (Boston Public Library, Boston, Mass.)
Chicago [Special Collections, Rare Books: PR2439.B5A8 1640] (University of Chicago Library, Chicago)
Congress [PR1241 .L6 vol. 144] (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)n11303
Cornell [Kroch PR2439.B5 A6] (Cornell University Library
Folger [cs10] [cs77] [cs392] Proofreader’s marks on B (outer) (Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.)
Harvard [Houghton STC 3818] (Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Mass.)
Hunt. [Rare books 60509] [Rare books 60499] (Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California)
Michigan [Special Collections PR 2439 .B5 A7] (University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor and Flint)
Newberry [Special Collections 4th Floor Case Y 135.B782] (Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois)
Penn. [EC6.B7877.640a] (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.)
Pforz.(Texas) [1 — no shelfmark] (Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection, New York — transferred to Texas)
Prince. [Rare Books (Ex) 3639.9.312] (Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.)
Texas [2 copies] (University of Texas, Austin, Texas)
Yale [Beinecke Ih B787 640] (Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn.)15Ann Haaker did a thorough search collating most of the listed copies and found only a handful of press variants, which are discussed below. Anthony Parrn11304, David Scott Kastan and Richard Proudfootn11305 and I have in turn spot-checked a range of the copies but have little to correct from Haaker’s exemplary work. Haaker’s research showed that four press variants had been made to some copies of the quarto. These are commented on below in the sequence in which they occur in the quarto. The evidence for the variants is then demonstrated by a comparison of the three copies held in the collections of the Folger Library with one from the Library of Congress. (In each case what is believed to be the corrected state occurs before the squared bracket, the uncorrected state follows the bracket.)Dedicatory Epistle
14:en-/tertayn it with] en-/tertayn with
For example, as found on A2v: en-tertayn it with [DFo1, 2, 3 and Congress]2.7.1097loves]likes
For example, as found on E3r: loves [DFo2, 3 and Congress]; likes [DFo1]3.2.1253there, a Poet]there’s a Poetn11306
For example, as found on F1r: there, a Poet [DFo1, 2, 3]; there’s a Poet [Congress];3.3.1395/ More than at first ]not in Qu.
For example, as found on F3r: / More than at first, I ha’not said [Congress]; / I ha’not said [DFo1, 2, 3];16Parr has noted a fifth possible variant:3.3.1387yeares]yea
For example, as found on F3r: yeares [DFo1, 2, 3]; yea, [Congress]17This is, however, arguable. “Yea” would make no sense as the concluding word in a line, which reads “I have bought feathers of him these foure yeares” and one would have expected it to have been immediately corrected, if that were what the compositor originally set. It is odd, therefore, that it occurs in the Library of Congress copy, which carries the more decisive and extended correction shown immediately above this one, which falls on the same page of the quarto, F3r. Perhaps the reading “yea” may be the result of bad inking or a matter of damaged type which occurred as the printing progressed.18Of bibliographical interest is the existence in one of the copies in the collection of the Folger Library [DFo3] of the proof-state sheets for the outer forme B (only signatures B2v and B4v). These contain a number of recommended corrections. On B2v line 10 “Good master Blaze, has this so famous doctor”, Blaze’s name which is printed as “Blaz,” is underlined and a “x” marked in the right margin. Most copies consulted offer the name in full, so presumably a piece of type had slipped out of place, not caught the ink fully or just been accidentally omitted, which was noted at the proof stage and the fault corrected. On the same page at line 18 where there is a stage direction (“Act 1. scen. 2 Blaze, Doctor, Ioylesse.”), the long double “s” in Joyless’s name has been underlined and a “x” marked in the right margin. The fault here seems to be a blob in the ligature which makes it look rather like a double “f”. This “blob effect” has disappeared in all copies consulted. In line 26 on that page (“How doe you finde him Sir? Do’s his disease”), the word “Do’s” has a curved line beneath it and there is an “x” alongside in the right margin. It may be that the type used for the final “s” has been set slightly higher than the rest of the word or indeed the rest of the line. In many copies consulted, it looks almost as if that letter has been added such that there is little space between the two words “do’s his” and in all those copies the placing of the “s” is still set higher than the type shaping the surrounding words. On B4v at line 27 the stage direction “weepe.” is underlined and has a further line alongside, perhaps suggesting that it should be moved. In the copies consulted, it is placed after line 28 and is more firmly situated in the right margin. On the same sheet in line 38 (“Fool did I say?”) the last two words have been elided as “Isay” and a space sign (#) indicating a necessary insertion is to be seen in the right margin. In all copies consulted such a space has been made. Haaker viewed these sheets and, though she did not itemise the markings she summed up their import: “Corrections were made in lettering and positioning of a stage direction. One mark for spacing and another, presumably for punctuation, were not corrected.”n11307 This is not wholly accurate, since the spacing sign was clearly followed through in the printing; but she would appear from her commentary to have been reliant on a librarian at the Folger for her information and had not viewed the proof-sheets herself.19The Antipodes has been a popular play for editing in recent years. Pearson included a kind of transcription /facsimile in the third volume of his edition of the Dramatic Works of Richard Brome in 1873. It was more carefully edited by G.P.Baker in the third volume of C.M.Gayley’s Representative English Comedies in 1914 and by A.S. Knowland in an anthology of Six Caroline Plays in 1962. By far the most detailed editing has been undertaken by Ann Haaker, Anthony Parr and by David Scott Kastan and Richard Proudfoot in the editions cited and discussed throughout this essay and I have relied heavily and with gratitude on their work. The formatting of this edition follows that of the Brome Project overall: it presents both a period text in as careful a diplomatic transcription as computerised techniques will allow and a modernised and fully annotated version, which presents the play as far as possible as a text for performance. Punctuation and spelling, where not contentious, have often been silently corrected in the modernising process; some sections of the text which appear as prose in the quarto have been offered as verse; modern scene divisions, which designate a new scene only after the stage has fully emptied of characters, have been created to replace Brome’s use of classical principles to make hopefully for a more streamlined and readable text. Participal endings which in the quarto are rendered as “-’d” are here presented as “-ed”, except where the metre requires the final syllable to be pronounced; in such cases (and there are surprisingly few) they are given with a stress mark as “-èd”. All textual emendations of substance are commented on in the annotations. The most problematic verbal usage (and in this particular play it is extensive) is the word “travail”, which can variously mean “travel” or “travail” (in the sense of toiling effortfully). Modernising the word poses considerable difficulties, since visually and aurally “travail” is capable of embracing both possibilities as a significant pun. I have tried to distinguish between the meanings in modernising the text, but at a recognised loss. Actors in a production might like to experiment with the possibilities of the word, “travail”, to see if they can sustain the complex pun by vocal means. The copy texts for this edition have been the two housed in the collections of the British Library (644.d.32 and 162.c.13), which allowed me to work with a corrected and an uncorrected version of the text and to make choices between them.n11308 If the modernised version of the play is presented as a text for performance, the period text is consciously offered as a text for readers. To that end, this essay concludes with transcriptions and commentary on the paratextual materials that accompanied the text of the play when it was first issued as a quarto.PARATEXTUAL MATERIALS accompanying the QUARTO FIRST EDITION of THE ANTIPODES20All five independently printed quartos of Brome’s plays (The Northern Lass, The Sparagus Garden, The Antipodes, A Jovial Crew and The Queen’s Exchange) include preliminary materials and dedications.n11309 The paratextual materials accompanying the 1640 first edition of The Antipodes comprise some four items: the three preliminaries include a dedication by Brome and two commendatory poems; then, as a kind of afterword following the Epilogue, there is a short note by Brome addressed to the “Courteous Reader”, which is unusual in giving a brief outline of the stage history of the play and its manner of performance. The collation for the preliminaries runs from A2r to A4r, while the final note to the reader is to be found on L4v. One unusual feature of the preliminaries is the inclusion of the Prologue on A3v between the two complimentary poems rather than where one would expect to find it situated either immediately before the list of “Persons in the Play” or between that list and the opening scene of Act One. Greg reasons that this “would seem to be due to the type of A3v and A4r having been accidentally transposed”.n11310 As he observes: the catchword, “The” on A3v is incorrect for A4r (the poem entitled “To the Author on his Comedy”) but correct if it were to be the catchword leading to A4v which is headed “The Persons in the Play”. (The Prologue is included with the modernised text of The Antipodes along with appropriate annotations and glosses and is not reproduced or commented on here.)21Beneath a design heading the page which comprises reiterated patterns of acorns above a row of urns and then a repeat of the row of acorns which is now inverted, the title of the dedicatory letter reads: “TO /THE RIGHT /Honourable /VVILLIAM /Earle of Hertford, &c.” The opening address, “My Lord:” is in a remarkably small font by comparison with any other font used throughout the epistle. Maybe this was to accommodate the exceptionally large initial letter “T” (of “The long experience…”) which is set centrally in a square-bordered design within entwining boughs and leaves; the whole design stands adjacent to four ensuing lines of text. The text of the dedication covers two pages (A2r and A2v) and reads as follows:My Lord: The long experience I have had of your Honour’s favourable intentions towards me hath compelled me to this presumption. But I hope your goodness will be pleased to pardon what your benignity was the cause of, viz., the error of my dedication. Had your candour not encouraged me in this, I had been innocent. Yet, I beseech you, think not I intend it any other than your recreation at your retirement from your weighty employments; and to be the declaration of your gracious encouragements towards me, and the testimony of my gratitude. If the public view of the world entertain it with no less welcome than that private one of the stage already has given it, I shall be glad the world owes you the thanks. If it meet with too severe construction, I hope your protection. What hazards soever it shall justle with, my desires are it may pleasure your lordship in the perusal, which is the only ambition he is conscious of, who is, my lord, your Honour’s humbly devoted Richard Brome.22This dedication is intriguing in a number of ways: Brome implies a great debt to the Earl of Hertford that is of longstanding, or that he has for some time been honoured by the Earl’s kindness or patronage. Brome also dedicated the manuscript copy of The English Moor to him and indeed appears personally to have copied that play for his benefit and private delight.n11311 William Seymour (1588-1660) was created Marquis of Hertford in 1640 and second Duke of Somerset in 1660 (he had been one of Charles II’s governors during his minority as Prince of Wales). Hertford had achieved a degree of notoriety during the reign of James I through his unfortunate marriage with Arbella Stuart (1610). In the context of The Antipodes the dedication hints perhaps at anti-Royalist leanings in Brome, since Hertford was a strong critic of Charles’s reign and his disbanding of parliamentary proceedings (he was one of a group of lords who petitioned Charles to recall parliament in 1640), though he took the Royalist side in 1642 (thereby ending a long political association with the Earl of Essex, who took charge of the parliamentary army). Martin Butler interprets Letoy within the play as having much in common with Hertford, especially his pursuit of plain rather than brave dress, so the dedication is particularly apt.n11312 The implication of the writing is that Seymour had praised the play on viewing a performance at Salisbury Court, the “private” theatre referred to, and that he had encouraged publication of the comedy to bring it a more “public” audience of readers. If that larger audience approve the composition, then Brome insists the thanks are due to the Earl. If its public reception is poor (if it meets with “too severe construction”), then Brome hopes to take sheltering comfort behind Hertford’s confident sense of its worth. Whatever the book’s destiny in public, privately he will be content if reading it brings rest and relaxation to Seymour from his burden of duties and political affairs. It is an assured, accomplished and dignified address, meticulous in its syntactical control and direct in its honest feeling. In content and style this dedication neatly prepares for the Prologue to the play, which will shortly follow this in a reading and which ridicules inflated courtly drama that is full of posturing and grandiloquence and which attempts to disguise the shortcomings of its intellectual invention by displays of brilliant costuming.n1131323These robust values of frank simplicity and shrewd insight are extolled in the poem which follows, “To the censuring critics, on the approved comedy, The Antipodes”. Various persons have been offered to qualify as the figure lurking behind the initials, “C.G.”, who also wrote commendatory verses to The Sparagus Garden. Ann Haaker (followed by subsequent editors of the play, Anthony Parr and Kastan and Proudfoot) eliminates Christopher Goad, an actor with the King’s Revels at Salisbury Court Theatre who had been suggested by Fleay, in preference for Charles Gerbier, a minor poet, admirer of Jonson and fellow-contributor of commendatory verses with Brome to work by John Tatham.n11314 Matthew Steggle offers two further contenders for the role: Christopher Goodfellow and Christopher Gewen, his preferred candidate; both were members of a coterie surrounding Seymour and Cavendish (to one of whose plays Brome also wrote prefatory verses).n11315 Steggle has troubled to read all the prefatory verses contributed by “C.G.” and learned from them that he was admitted to the Inner Temple, where both Goodfellow and Gemen were members (and the only ones with the requisite initials) over the period covered by “C.G.’s” writings. The evidence is not conclusive but persuasive, particularly given how the verbal precision and the rhetorical and grammatical discipline evident in these twenty-two lines suggest a trained legalistic mind, particularly in the way a reader’s interest is sustained by a rich variety of means throughout twelve lines in the third sentence. The combative tone (the unflinching critique of those “censuring critics”) and the enigmatic play with the epithet, “approved” (meaning that it won a licence for performance by passing the censoring eyes of the Lord Chamberlain’s office; and that it delighted, won the commendation of certain (noticeably unnamed) figures of authority) support such an interpretation.To Censuring Critics On The Approved Comedy, The AntipodesJonson’s alive! The world admiring stands,
And to declare his welcome there, shake hands.
Apollo’s pensioners may wipe their eyes
And stifle their abortive elegies:n11316
Taylorn11317 his goose-quill may abjure again
And, to make paper dear, scribbling refrain,
For sure there’s cause of neither. Jonson’s ghost
Is not a tenant in the Elysian coastn11318,
But, vexed with too much scorn at your dispraisen11319,
Silently stole unto a grove of baysn11320;
Therefore bewail your errors and entreat
He will return unto the former seat,
Whence he was often pleased to feed your ear
With the choice dainties of his theatre;
But I much fear he will not be easily won
To leave his bower, where grief and he alone
Do spend their time, to see how vainly we
Accept old toys for a new comedy.
Therefore repair to him and praise each line
Of his Volpone, Sejanus, Catiline.n11321
But stay and let me tell you where he is:
He sojourns in his Brome’s Antipodes.
C.G.24This is a most elegantly phrased compliment, presenting Jonson as inspired by Apollo and Brome as the true inheritor of Jonson’s satiric vision. It is tactfully expressed too, since Jonson had for a short while taken exception to Brome’s success with his early plays which coincided with the failure particularly of The New Inn in 1629; in some ways this poem attempts to compensate and console Brome for any remaining bitterness from the time of his estrangement from his mentor.25The second commendatory poem is equally complimentary and expands the circle of Brome’s admirers from theatregoers, theatre personnel and fellow playwrights to include the intelligentsia. The final assigning of the poem’s authorship is an instance of a press variant in extant copies of The Antipodes: some (presumably earlier printed copies) carry just the initials, “R.C.”; others the name, “ROB. CHAMBERLAIN”. Chamberlain was a minor poet and dramatist of the period, who had but newly come to London from Oxford, where he held a notable place amongst university wits; his plays, The Swaggering Damsel and Jocabella were also published in 1640. Martin Butler has argued that Brome, “C.G.” and Robert Chamberlain were part of a literary group or coterie of authors with political affiliations to the Earls of Hertford, Essex and Newcastle.n11322 Their alignment in this publication, therefore, indicates a distinctly radical statement: the affiliation of all four within the bound covers of one book may be interpreted as a conscious advertising of the degree to which they were politically engaged. This, however, is a contextual issue; the poem itself with its gently rhyming couplets focuses entirely on the fantasy elements of Brome’s invention as wholly possessing Chamberlain’s mind while reading The Antipodes.To The Author On His Comedy, The AntipodesSteered by the hand of Fate o’er swelling seas,
Methought I landed on th’Antipodes,
Where I was straight a stranger, for ’tis thus:
Their feet do tread against the tread of us.n11323
My scull mistook.n11324 Thy book, being in my hand,
Hurried my soul to th’Antipodian strand,
Where I did feast my fancy and mine eyes
With such variety of rarities,
That I perceive thy muse frequents some shade
Might be a grove for a Pierian maid.n11325
Let idiots praten11326: it boots notn11327 what they say.
Th’Antipodes to wit and learning may
Have ample priv’legen11328: for among that crewn11329,
I know there’s not a man can judge of you.
Rob[ert] Chamberlain.26It is interesting that the last word to receive particular stress in the ultimate line is “judge”, given that so much of the satirical material, especially in Acts 3 and 4 of the play, examines and castigates corrupt forms of justice and judicial proceedings. Chamberlain had clearly read the comedy with a rare attention and frames his poem such that it moves through praise of Brome’s powers of imaginative fantasy to point up how it nonetheless has at its core social and satirical (rather than escapist) aims.27The final paratextual item is Brome’s note to his “courteous reader”. It is included here since unusually it indicates, despite its succinctness, a great deal of theatre history concerning Brome personally (his contractual relations with Richard Heton and Salisbury Theatre; and his preference for working with Beeston and his company of boy actors) and too it reveals what textually occurred when the comedy was first performed. Brome comments on how he wished at least in print for the full text of The Antipodes as he conceived it to be made available to readers. It is a remarkably long text (it reaches over 1100 speeches, whereas most of Brome’s plays fall between 900 and 1000; and many of those speeches in The Antipodes run to over fifteen lines, which is unusual in a comedy, which tends towards fast-paced repartee and quick, terse rejoinders) and it is not surprising that Heton’s company effected numerous cuts. Brome had written the play during a prolonged period of plague when all theatrical activity was banned and he may have taken advantage of his enforced leisure to elaborate his ideas and allow his fancy free rein. It was the full text, as Brome indicates, that was licensed (“approved”) for performance. What parts of the play were excised in 1638 it is impossible to gauge, but the known fact of that cutting has a direct bearing on how the play now in the twenty-first century might be viewed as a text for potential performance.n11330 But Brome also takes advantage of the printed format to advise readers how it affords them a special experience not shared by theatregoers at the Salisbury Court Theatre. Taken with the dedication and the commendatory poems, Brome’s note continues an argument all the paratextual materials share: that reading is a pursuit of the leisured and the learned, who are given not to rapid judgement but to reflection and who possess the ability to imagine in response to the printed word. Lest the reader perhaps seems overly privileged by this line of thought, Brome takes care to end by implying that his comments on the actors’ curtailment of his play are not to be deemed as judgemental, since the performances were both “generally applauded” and “well acted”.Courteous Reader:
You shall find in this book more than was presented upon the stage, and left out of the presentation for superfluous length (as some of the players pretended). I thought good all should be inserted according to the allowedn11331 original and as it was at first intended for the Cockpit stage in the right of my most deserving friend, Mr. William Beeston, unto whom it properly appertained.n11332 And so I leave it to thy perusal, as it was generally applauded and well acted at Salisbury Court.
Farewell, Ri[chard] Brome.28Brome honours his reader, confident of a fair evaluation of his comedy. Whatever his disappointment at the treatment of his text by the players and his chagrin that the piece was not performed by the company for whom he wrote it and who, doubtless, influenced its composition at every turn, Brome takes pride in the fact that The Antipodes was nonetheless successful with audiences and was acted to his satisfaction. Perhaps Brome was trying to avoid further conflict with Heton and his troupe, since his last contract with Salisbury Court required him not to print any of the plays commissioned by them without their express permission. It is noticeable in this context that Brome never refers to The Antipodes as his play (only the writers of the commendatory verses make that claim). Perhaps he was all too aware that Heton viewed the comedy as part of his company’s repertory and, after the bruising that both sides appear to have suffered while contesting or defending the terms of Brome’s contracts in the past, Brome wished to keep the players sweetly disposed.
n11291 All three plays entered “under the hands of Doctor wykes & Mr. ffetherston warden” were described as “[by Ric deleted].”
n11292 the deletion corrects a mistake in the register.
n11293 shared the same printer.
n11294 “the type of A3v and A4r [have] been accidentally transposed”.
n11295 which follows directly after the Epilogue.
n11296 By a shrewd compromise, the scene division is set to the far right alongside the half-line that concludes his speech, while the instruction for her entrance with Byplay is placed directly beneath this and alongside her first words [AN 2.7.lines1025-1030].
n11297 [AN 4.8.line2301].
n11298 This is particularly noticeable on I1v, where two such complex directions are placed one directly above the other with a scene division heading the second [AN 4.8.lines2194-2208].
n11299 [AN 5.6.lines2770-2771]
n11300 Whereas there is only a handful of examples of this way of setting shared lines in each of the three opening acts, some sense of the degree to which they proliferate is to be gauged from the fact that they number forty-one in Act 4 and again in Act 5.
n11301 possessed a fair hand.
n11302 The “allowed original” in the appended note and the anticipatory stage directions suggests that the copy for the quarto was almost certainly the author’s papers, or a transcript of these…
n11303 Congress [PR1241 .L6 vol. 144] (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
n11304 Anthony Parr
n11305 David Scott Kastan and Richard Proudfoot
n11306 there’s a Poet
n11307 One mark for spacing and another, presumably for punctuation, were not corrected.”
n11308 choices between them.
n11309 preliminary materials and dedications.
n11310 “would seem to be due to the type of A3v and A4r having been accidentally transposed”.
n11311 for his benefit and private delight.
n11312 so the dedication is particularly apt.
n11313 brilliant costuming.
n11314 John Tatham.
n11315 (to one of whose plays Brome also wrote prefatory verses).
n11316 And stifle their abortive elegies:
n11317 Taylor
n11318 Is not a tenant in the Elysian coast
n11319 But, vexed with too much scorn at your dispraise
n11320 Silently stole unto a grove of bays
n11321 Of his Volpone, Sejanus, Catiline.
n11322 the Earls of Hertford, Essex and Newcastle.
n11323 Their feet do tread against the tread of us.
n11324 My scull mistook.
n11325 Might be a grove for a Pierian maid.
n11326 Let idiots prate
n11327 it boots not
n11328 Have ample priv’lege
n11329 for among that crew
n11330 for potential performance.
n11331 to the allowed
n11332 properly appertained.