- cid
- bafkreieklbv2cqxp4t6qg443llg7kmducgwi5iakjlh2hrqogcqzviwicm
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- 06_poems_pericles_facsimiles_1905_oxford_page_0056.jpg
- height
- 2400
- key
- pdf-page-1769752318062-ch3gmm3w63f
- ocr_model
- mistral-ocr-latest
- page_number
- 56
- size
- 562985
- text
- VENUS AND ADONIS 49
Discrepancies of spelling.
for ‘Within’ (235); ‘aud’ for ‘and’ (301); ‘bnt’ for ‘but’ (393); ‘Ho’ for ‘He’ (545); ‘nor’ for ‘not’ (615); ‘the th’ impartial’ for ‘th’impartial’ (748); ‘had’ for ‘was’ (1054); ‘crop’s’ for ‘crops’ (1175). None of these are likely to mislead. But misprints are not the main defects of the volume. A more serious flaw lies in the careless discrepancies which characterize the spelling of common words. Very little time must have been spent on the revision of proof-sheets of a book in which some of the commonest words were spelt indifferently two or three ways in contiguous stanzas. Elizabethan spelling was impatient of strict law, but well-printed books observed within their limits a definite system in the treatment of ordinary words. In the first issue of *Venus and Adonis* chaos reigns supreme. In the same stanzas we have both ‘kis’ (207) and ‘kisse’ (209), and both ‘sun’ (193) and ‘sunne’ (198), while elsewhere (750) we meet with a third variant in ‘sonne.’ Similar irregularities are ‘blood’ (555) and ‘bloud’ (1122); ‘bore’ (1003) and ‘boare’ (1112); ‘desier’ (36) and ‘desire’ (547); ‘eyes’ (120) and ‘eies’ (1052); ‘flood’ (824) and ‘floud’ (in ‘floud-gates’, 53); ‘flower’ (8) and ‘floure’ (1055); ‘inchaunt’ (145) and ‘inchanting’ (247); ‘lion’ (1093) and ‘lyon’ (884); ‘litle’ (132) and ‘little’ (1179); ‘pray’ (i. e. ‘prey’, 58) and ‘praie’ (1097); ‘rain’ (360) and ‘raine’ (71); ‘sayes’ (851) and ‘saies’ (1173); ‘skie’ (485) and ‘skye’ (815); ‘spite’ (173) and ‘spight’ (1133); ‘in spite of’ (173) and ‘despight of’ (751); ‘spirit’ (one syllable, 882) and ‘sprite’ (181); ‘sproong’ (1168) and ‘sprong’ (1171).
The occasional use of contractions and of the symbol ‘&’ for ‘and’ is probably an endeavour on a clumsy printer’s part to prevent the over-running of the line in which they are present. But it is just possible that they reproduce a characteristic of the author’s manuscripts. In Shakespeare’s extant signatures, some of the letters are represented by the abbreviations.
G
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T06:12:23.391Z
- text_extracted_by
- ocr-service
- text_has_content
- true
- text_images_count
- 0
- text_source
- ocr
- uploaded
- true
- width
- 1750