Para1Despite offering scholars an array of queries and variants, the text of Thomas Dekker’s London’s Tempe has not attracted much discussion. The show is printed on two and a half sheets (A–C2) and leaf A1v is blank, all of which is typical for a Caroline mayoral show. The quality of the type and composition of the text, however, is somewhat atypical. As Tracey Hill remarks, Londons tempe is notably badly printed (probably by Okes), often using worn and damaged type (Hill 262, n.58). My old-spelling text on the Map of Early Modern London website strives to identify these features in its diplomatic transcription and encoded corrections so that readers can recognize the original text’s flaws, which include scattered use of italic letters (often within words that are otherwise printed in roman) and damaged type. Three copies of the single early edition exist today; however, Fredson Bowers and Frederick William Fairholt knew of only two when they prepared their respective editions of the show. In his note on the text, Bowers states that the two known copies are the British Library copy (BL) and the Huntington Library copy (Huntington); however, the Short Title Catalogue lists another copy housed at the National Library of Scotland (NLS).¹ Collation of the NLS copy reveals over a dozen variants on inner forme C (C1v and C2r) not found in BL or Huntington as well as the correction BL makes to Sheet B in Huntington. On the basis of finding the sole variant between the BL text and the Huntington text (sig. B1, your to you), Bowers claimed that BL was the more correct copy of London’s Tempe that existed, even though it contained a modern transcription of sheet C from the Huntington copy. Having examined a digital facsimile of the NLS copy of the show, which includes this emendation, I have deduced that its variants found in signatures C1v and C2r prove that corrections were made to the forme that produced the Huntington copy, and I provide my rationale in what follows.

Para2It is important to note that I have produced this edition based upon remediations or second-hand examinations of the only extant copies of London’s Tempe. I obtained the digital facsimile of the Huntington copy via EEBO and a high-resolution digital scan of the NLS through their library. Paul Mulholland was kind enough to examine the BL copy, as their volume of mayoral shows is too fragile to allow for digitization. Any findings or observations listed in the prefatory material or commentary could thus be potentially augmented through direct engagement with the original printed texts. Despite these limitations, this investigation has yielded significant conclusions from having examined Huntington, BL, and NLS and from revisiting Bowers’ and Fairholt’s respective work. In what follows, I will justify the authority of the NLS spellings as corrections by first exploring their correspondence with Fairholt’s and Bowers’ emendations and then considering their authority in relation to Fairholt’s and Bowers’ silent emendations. I will then investigate the authority of the corrections in the NLS that Bowers and Fairholt had not anticipated in their informed edits based on plausible errors made by the compositor in question. The textual introduction concludes by engaging with recent scholarship from Hill to offer some thoughts on the printed pageant book’s purpose and compositional history relative to the event itself.

Para3Frederick William Fairholt, Esquire, provides the first modern edition of London’s Tempe in his anthology of mayoral shows. He edited Lord Mayors’ Pageants: Parts I. and II., which represents volume ten of the Percy Society’s Early English Poetry, Ballads, and Popular Literature of the Middle Ages (1844). The first part makes a concerted effort to provide a history of the lord mayor’s show, and it reveals that Fairholt only knew of Dekker’s Troia-Nova Triumphans (1612) and London’s Tempe, as there is no mention of Britannia’s Honor (1628) and only a brief mention that, for the shows between 1627 and 1628, these years are unrecorded (Fairholt 1.54). His opening statement to his brief introduction to London’s Tempe acknowledges this again: Whether Dekker contributed more than the two pageants which are here reprinted to the annual civic solemnities, cannot now be ascertained with strict certainty (Fairholt 2.35). Fairholt’s introduction also raises some questions about which texts he used. Published in 1844, Fairholt’s edition relies on personal libraries. He lists one copy as Mr. J.P. Collier’s and the other as taken from the library of the Duke of Devonshire (Fairholt 36). The Huntington Library website mentions that its copy derives from the Duke of Devonshire’s library, and Hill has indicated in her bibliographical investigation into the printed pageant books that the twelve Shows once owned by the Duke of Devonshire are now in the Huntington Library (Hill 157). The British Library’s website does not indicate that their copy was originally that of Mr. J.P. Collier; however, they do state that the text is [i]mperfect; wanting the last four pages which have been supplied in manuscript and also in photographic facsimile from the copy in the Huntington Library (Dekker). The description coincides with Fairholt’s mention that Collier’s copy includes two leaves in the manuscript in the handwriting of Mr. Rhodes (Fairholt 36), to whom the copy belonged, at least until his library was sold in April of 1825. This information leads me to conclude that Rhodes transcribed these pages from the Huntington copy, a missing copy, or another copy containing the same state of inner C. In any case, the material likely adheres to the variants in sheet C of the Huntington copy, since Bowers does not note any differentiations between Huntington and BL’s sheet C. Given the correspondence with the BL copy, Rhodes’ template could not have been NLS. We can therefore safely presume that Fairholt and Bowers were both working from what we now know as the Huntington and BL copies when they collated them in their modern editions.

Para4Bowers’ note on the text provides us with the basic facts about London’s Tempe that he was aware of at the time. He points us toward the BL and Huntington copies, which were the only extant copies of which he knew, and gives us an overview of their condition, including the fact that BL is missing signatures C1 and C2 and that both copies have been cropped at the expense of the imprint (Bowers 4.99). He acknowledges Fairholt’s previous modern edition of the show, and he defers to W.W. Greg to determine that Nicholas Okes is likely the printer, a matter that will be discussed further below. As T.H. Howard-Hill indicates, Bowers’ edition was very well respected and commended when it was released, but it nevertheless had its flaws and received warranted criticism (Howard-Hill 148). Some of these issues were presented with the understanding that Bowers was not at fault. For example, J.R. Brown noted that Bowers’ colleague Cyrus Hoy would be providing a companion series of textual annotations in the years to come, which were eventually published in 1980 (Brown 86). However, Brown also critiqued Bowers for several errors he found in the fourth volume of The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker (Bowers), specifically in his case study of The Sun’s Darling. He nevertheless acknowledges that Bowers’ purpose was to provide a diplomatic transcription of the text: the editorial procedures have the general effect of presenting the quarto tidied up and well printed (Brown 82). Brown’s summation of Bowers’ editorial work on The Sun’s Darling as excessive in its retention of punctuation is also an accurate description of Bowers’ edition of London’s Tempe.

Para5Whereas the old-spelling text of this edition, which is transcribed from the EEBO facsimile of the Huntington copy of London’s Tempe, aims to accomplish the same feat as Bowers, but with recourse to the NLS copy to make better-informed decisions, the modern-spelling text that accompanies it removes puzzling devices for the contemporary reader. For example, as Gary Taylor has pointed out, Dekker had an unusual penchant for parentheses: Dekker averages 126 per play (Taylor 253). Although the editorial guidelines note that parentheses within the speeches of the printed pageant books might be understood to signal a lower or quicker pronunciation, Dekker’s excessive use of parentheses makes it challenging to locate plausible instances where he is suggesting that the actor adhere to these modes of delivery. Readers can still gain insight into these possible intentions through reference to the diplomatic transcription available via the Map of Early Modern London. The latter is linked from the edition page of this edition so that the reader is provided with a sense of the text’s original state, which preserves a fleeting sense of Dekker’s stylistic qualities and possibly an idea of how an actor might be cued to deliver the speeches.

Para6Dekker’s dashes are another matter altogether though. As Claire M. Bourne shows, In the first decade of the seventeenth century, dashes began appearing with notable frequency in the quartos of published comedies to assist readers in registering what might be called the fleshiness of performance (78). This assessment follows Bourne’s detailed analysis of Dekker and Thomas Middleton’s The Roaring Girl, specifically the elaborate dash as marking the pause in speech caused by Sebastian kissing the disguised Mary to confirm it is her. In London’s Tempe, dashes only only in speeches and never in the prose paragraphs. Moreover, they most frequently appear in the dialogue between Jove and Vulcan, which atypically establishes dramatic action akin to a stage play unlike the typical speeches of mayoral shows. A prime example is found early in their dialogue after Jove has initially hailed Vulcan to attention. After mentioning that they are making arrows for Cupid, Vulcan says, Here, with three hyphens afterward, which form the longest dash in the pageant book. Some dramatic business likely occurs in the interval. With the reference to the twenty-four arrows, Vulcan may gesture to the Cyclopes to hand them the elevated Cupid. Based upon this early usage, which both corresponds to how dashes are implemented in the text and aligns with modern conceptualizations of punctuation, the modern-spelling text retains many of the dashes from the printed pageant book. Dekker’s attention to dramatic action and structure is also apparent in his separation of the pageants into numbered presentations. These headings correspond with those recorded in the Ironmongers’ records, which ostensibly represent the invention and plot that Dekker supplied them (Robertson and Gordon 117-118). As David McInnis remarks, Dekker provides structural movements to his dramatic work even before the onset of the five-act structure (61). In London’s Tempe, we witness Dekker continuing this conscientious attention to dramatic structure by deliberately and atypically dividing the water pageantry into two distinct presentations for the company and the reader.

Para7Both of these modern editions have been created through recourse to Early English Books Online (EEBO), specifically the Huntington copy; reference to the digital facsimile of NLS; and consultation of notes on BL courtesy of Paul Mulholland. As the investigation below suggests, this distance from the printed texts limits my ability to arrive at some conclusions, leaving things more speculative than they might have been had my travel not been curtailed by the pandemic. Nevertheless, I have managed to make significant discoveries and observations that do not necessitate further inquiry in order to compose a new edition of this remarkable but (as the general introduction illuminates) largely unremarked upon show.

Para8Although recourse to the NLS copy indicates that several corrections were made to the previous state of the forme, some of these matters are reaffirmations rather than novel changes, given that Bowers and Fairholt had already made several of these emendations. The words Apolloes, Go on, Oceanus, our, and ned (catchword) were all alterations that modern editors had previously made to the text (Bowers 111-113). These correspondences lead me to regard the changes in the NLS copy as authoritative. The decision to add an l to Apoloes makes sense given the spelling of Apollo’s name, and Oceanus makes more sense than Oceans, given that this pageant demands that a mythological representation of the world’s oceans speak. Go on is more logical than Good since the words indicate that Apollo directs Cambell, much as Oceanus, Jove, and Titan have previously done, to move onward; in this case they move into the Guildhall for the company’s feast. The decision to change or to our is also logical, since the text does not imply a contrast between the current location (the lord mayor’s home) and the officious train—consisting of the lord mayor and his entourage. Instead, our suggests that the lord mayor’s home is the end point of the group’s journey, where he shall rest, and the spectacles shall conclude. The spelling of ned highlights the compositor’s correction of the catchword, spelled ned on C1r of Huntington, and NLS, but spelled nd on C1v of Huntington. The correction to ned on C1v in NLS is thus authoritative given C1v’s spelling of the same catchword. All of these emendations have been previously made by Fairholt and/or Bowers and are also found in the NLS copy’s corrected form. Bowers and Fairholt also silently emend Zediacke and Albeiu to Zodiacke and Albeit. The logic of Bowers’ silent emendations is confirmed by the NLS copy’s variants, which correct these spellings as Bowers had aptly done without knowledge of NLS’s existence.²

Para9One correction in the NLS that is not authoritative is the change from owne to Cowne. The word cowne does not appear in the OED or LEME, nor does it make sense that the compositors would have added a C without an r to form Crowne.³ With the repetition of Gowne over the course of the passage, I am more inclined to see the C as a substitution for a G, likely indicating a depletion of the latter’s case or a damaged case.⁴ This edition has thus kept Fairholt’s and Bowers’ emendation of gowne. The NLS spelling represents an effort to present a more correct, though imperfect, spelling that more closely resembles what we can reasonably deduce to be Dekker’s intended spelling, namely Gowne.

Para10Although neither Bowers nor Fairholt emended the spellings of the remaining corrections found in the NLS copy—ones instead of one, remoued rather than remouen, bedd instead of bedds, and good mens rather than goodness—the corrections all make sense and will be shown to speak better to the pageants’ content. Ones (i.e., one’s) communicates that each of the liberal sciences wears an emblem that pertains to that science’s particular quality, whereas every one quality seems more likely to suggest that the emblems refer to multiple qualities.⁵ Given that Apollo’s speech is delivered in prose, when every other speech in the pageant is in verse,⁶ the less formal removed levels the god’s style to a common ground, especially given that the compositor has gone out of his way to change this slight detail. The single bed is more logical than the plural beds in Huntington since in the final pageant Oceanus is addressing only the mayor.

Para11Good men’s love would be appropriate since the pageant revolves around the idea of civic community through the mutual happiness of the praetor and his people. While it could be argued that goodness’ love produces an acceptable meaning, given the reference to angels, men seems just as appropriate with the reference to the zodiac, since the twelve signs of the zodiac were thought to correspond with the twelve livery companies of London (Manley 278). Such a reference to the many persons who elected the mayor would suggest the community’s blessing. The error is also quite plausible, given Dekker’s handwriting. Extant Dekker manuscripts include spellings of Goodnes and men. I have consulted Greg’s facsimiles of a letter from Dekker addressed To my worthy and wor. freind Edw: Allin esquier at his house at Dullidge from 12 September 1616 as well as a loan declaration from 1602 to Philip Henslowe, signed by Anthony Munday and Dekker, but written by Dekker and entitled Quinto die Maij. The following suppositions are informed by these documents. They show that the e in men from 1616 differs from the e in Goodnes from 1602 as a result of inking. W.W. Greg notes that Dekker’s writing suggests three different handwritings; however, both of these words are taken from segments of the manuscripts written in English script (Greg 108-109). Variations of the e could confuse a compositor. Moreover, the difference between goodnes and good mens is a gap and an ne instead of men. If there was some sort of distortion, possibly from the terminal y of fairly in the line above, then the first minim of the m in men could be obscured enough to seem as if it was an n and linked to good. However, these thoughts are mostly speculative since we do not possess a manuscript of London’s Tempe.

Para12Although a proofreader could have noted these errors (even good mens), the question of Dekker’s potential involvement in the printing process is still interesting to consider, especially given Bowers’ analysis of variant copies of Dekker’s other works. Bowers notes how the inner formes C and F of Match Me in London were corrected twice (Bowers 103n.). He also mentions that the copies of Magnificent Entertainment reveal at least three rounds of correction in the outer forme of H (Bowers 103n.). Bowers later proposes that these multiple stages of proofing and correcting strongly suggest that Dekker was in the printing house to oversee these corrections to the text (Bowers 120). Given the active role of the author in seeing the pageant book through to print, it is reasonable to broach the possibility that Dekker was involved at least in part with the print shop’s work.

Para13Peter Blayney’s observations about early modern proofreading corroborate with this supposition, since the formes would be proofed while still on the press. This practice was usually followed by one round of proofreading performed by an employee of the print shop, a professional, or the author (Blayney 252). Blayney notes that the presence of the last of the three was not uncommon at this time (191). The printer in question makes matters more interesting, given Blayney’s observation that Heywood praises Nicholas Okes in An Apology for Actors. Blayney posits that such compliments could be the result of an author who was cordial enough to visit Okes’s shop to look over the printed copies (29), signalling a willingness to collaborate with authors like Dekker.

Para14There is no definitive evidence to suggest Dekker was present in Okes’s print shop, only a possibility based on dealings concerning civic entertainments from more than fifteen years before the printing of London’s Tempe. However, his involvement in the printing of Match Me in London in 1631, two years after his work on London’s Tempe, could signal a renewed interest or at least previous activity in the print shop that is generated in part by his work on the shows of 1628 and 1629. In any case, the substantial change from goodness’ to good men’s definitely indicates that the compositors corrected the forme in consultation with the manuscript and likely a proofreader, making the NLS corrections to sheet C of London’s Tempe authoritative.

Para15Despite its record of previously unknown variants, the NLS is not in ideal condition. Unlike the BL and Huntington copies, the bottom of its title page has been torn or damaged, leaving roughly half of the engraving of the Ironmongers’ crest intact. The signature and catchword on A2r have been cropped, though we can see the top of the A signature. As with the other two copies, we have only half of the catchword, and there is a missing comma at the end of maintenance in the last line as well as a missing s at the end of collar in the second-last line of A3. Catchwords are also barely visible on A3v, A4r, and A4v. We are missing the final line of B2r and B3r, and the last line of B3v is somewhat obscured; again, however, these instances are all due to cropping.

Para16For these reasons, the present edition does not adopt a particular copy-text as the term is commonly understood or was initially conceived by its inventors. As G. Thomas Tanselle has pointed out, the idea of a copy-text is essentially synonymous with the notion of a best text and is not necessarily in line with where the textual scholarship of R.B. McKerrow or W.W. Greg ended up later in their careers and lives (Tanselle 2-3). Looking to Bowers’ edition accentuates the issues with claims to a supposedly best text or authoritative text, as his claims that the BL copy was superior to the Huntington copy are mired by the fact that the final sheet of BL is missing and replaced by a modern transcription of Huntington or a lost copy. The present edition therefore makes no claim to any of the copies as being the best, even though NLS contains substantial corrections to sheet C.

Para17It is not surprising that there is just one early edition of London’s Tempe. It is a mayoral show, meaning that, unlike most plays, it was intended for only one performance. W.W. Greg notes that any printersʼ names have been cropped from the title page. The book was likely printed by Nicholas Okes and John Norton in 1629. Greg proposes Okes as the printer on the basis of a decorative initial (W) used on A3 (Greg 571). Having compared the show with Britannia’s Honour, I have deduced that, if London’s Tempe was not printed by Okes, then the initial was borrowed and used in the exact same position on the same forme (A3) twice, given that Britannia’s Honour was definitely printed by Okes. However, that text also lists John Norton as a fellow printer, since he was at this time Okes’ partner.⁷ It is impossible to know for certain, but such evidence suggests that the missing imprint named both partners. We also know from the Ironmongers’ records that as part of Dekker and Garrett Christmas’s payment they were to have 500 copies of the show printed (Robertson and Gordon 115). Since Christmas, as artificer, would have been in charge of the spectacles and construction, Dekker, as author, would likely have been responsible for providing the manuscript and supplies to the printers and making arrangements for them to print copies of the pageant book.

Para18The questions of when the work was printed and for what purpose are more uncertain. As Tracey Hill’s study of civic pageantry makes clear, there are two lingering hypotheses for the distributive purpose of printed pageant books. The first:

the printed texts generated by the mayoral Shows are more reminiscent in content, form and purpose of the works produced to commemorate royal progresses and the like. As with these works, printing the Shows may have been intended as largely a commemorative act. (Hill 219)

The second:

Those texts that do not scrupulously describe all the pageantry (Heywood’s are a case in point) may have been produced as programmes, issued on the day to onlookers with no particular requirement to be comprehensive. (Hill 232)

Abram Booth’s journal offers some reason to believe that programmes were distributed, given that he appears to have followed the text rather than the evidence of his eyes at some instances in the record (Hill 123). Furthermore, Hill identifies the journal’s portable nature and points to the likelihood that Booth drew the pageants on the Lord Mayor’s Day: The images in his ‘Journaelʼ have been sketched as prose evidence. The images in his ‘Journaelʼ have been sketched out in pencil then over-drawn in ink, suggesting that Booth took the original impression from life (Hill 120). I concur with Hill’s assessment, and find it plausible that some sort of programme was distributed to attendees, or at least the prominent audience of the mayor’s train, even if it was not the pageant book itself.

Para19The back material to the show complicates the idea that this pageant book was distributed at or before the event took place. Dekker reflects in this final portion that this year was unique since all the barges followed one another (every company in their degree) in a stately and majestical order. This evidence indicates that this material was added at a later stage in the printing process, meaning that the extant copies likely represent a printed text that was finalized after the ceremony had concluded. The back matter of Dekker’s previous show, Troia Nova-Triumphans, likewise suggests a print date that follows the performance rather than preceding it: The Title-page of this Booke makes promise of all the Shewes by water, but Apollo hauing no hand in them, I suffer them to dye by that which fed them; that is to say, Powder and Smoake (Dekker 578-581). Dekker’s tendencies suggest that Hill’s indication that the pageant books might have served as commemorative documents is the more likely of the two possibilities. This critical current originates in David Bergeron’s examinations of the pageant books in his article Stuart Civic Pageants and Textual Performance, which observes the ways in which the authors of mayoral shows were contracted by the livery companies to print copies, causing these writers, who were seasoned dramatists, to write with a readership in mind (Bergeron 168). In addition to the aforementioned example from Dekker’s Troia Nova Triumphans, Bergeron examines the concluding statement to Dekkerʼs Epistle to the Reader for The Magnificent Entertainment, which demonstrates Dekker’s reflexivity on the content after the processions had passed, namely that some of the entertainments were not presented for James I. In this manner, Bergeron claims that the printed pageant books represent the pageant writer’s ideal vision of the given show’s performance rather than an authentic or entirely accurate representation of the day’s events.

Para20If materials were circulated on the day that the show was staged at various London sites, then they were not the extant text we now possess but some variation of it. This is entirely possible: Tiffany Stern, for example, has suggested that similar ephemeral documents existed in the early modern playhouse and were distributed in various forms that possibly cohered with the later printing of play texts (Stern 5-6). By cross-examining Booth’s account with The explanacõn of the Shewe on the Lo: Maio’ day from the company’s records, we can deduce something similar. Taking the reprinting of the record from The Malone Society Collections III and comparing it with Henk Gras’s translation of Booth’s account, we can examine the account of Tethys’s entry:

A swollen sea on whose billows came borne up a Sealion, representing the East Indian Company—whose coat of arms has been decorated with 2 suchlike lions—thus the Mayor of the Company is a chief participant; hereto were added some whales and other creatures of the sea, in regard that the same [Campbell] is mayor or dean of the staple of Cloth, Governor of the French and Freeman of the Eastland Company. On this Lion sat a person, gracefully made up, representing Tethis, lady of the Ocean and Queen of the Sea. (Lusardi and Gras 22)

The second Presentacõn is a proud swelling Sea on whose waues is borne vpp a Sea Lyon in regard it is one of the Supporters of the East Indian Company as alsoe in regard the Lo: Maior is free of divers other Companies viz the ffrench and East-land Comp &c[.] On this Lyon ride Tethis wife to Oceanus and Queene of the Sea[.] (Robertson and Gordon 117)

Both the company’s scribe and Booth are working from a document that closely resembles the text of London’s Tempe, which could suggest both manuscripts relying upon the printed pageant book. However, neither account includes any speeches, any of the prefatory material from Dekker’s printed pageant book, and both state that Apollo’s palace is the last pageant without any mention of the speech at the Lord Mayor’s home following the feast. Both also omit sentences explaining the relationship between Oceanus and Tethys. Although it remains possible that both are coincidentally reproducing the same chosen features, the fact that this information is recorded on 27 October—two days before the Show took place—indicates that this record was created prior to the event, whereas Okes appears to have finished printing the pageant book after the celebrations, based upon Dekker’s likely addition to sheet C after the celebrations had concluded. There is the matter of Booth remarking upon the Staple, which is left out of the company records but included in the printed pageant book, but Booth offers a far more elaborate description of the mayor’s role in relation to the Staple, which suggests either that he was given this information at the time or he had sufficient knowledge of this office to draw the connections himself. It should also be noted that I have not managed to inspect the company records directly, but Hill remarks that the hand used to pen the overview of the show differs from the previous hands in the ledger (247). This was likely not common practice for Stuart mayoral shows, given the elaborate records from this day, but London’s Tempe offers us a tantalizing assortment of dramatic documents from which to arrive at this possible new conclusion, namely that manuscripts of what is transcribed in the company’s records may have been distributed to the Lord Mayor and his train. Londoners walked with texts as they witnessed their city streets anew annually, even if these writings were not necessarily the printed pageant books.