If You Are Happy and You Know It Tell Your Face
Toward a Disquisitional Edition of "If You're Happy and You lot Know It"
"Skimming the first foam off a new-plant writer is simply child's play beside gleaning subsequently Bentley over a stubble where Heinsius has reaped."
— A. E. Housman, review of Palmer'southward Heroides (1899)
I'm merely like yous: I desire the best for my kid, I'm trying to be a good parent. Information technology'due south been known since antiquity that the preschool years are "make or pause" for a child's time to come, and then I did what any serious researcher would do: hit the mommy blogs, where I learned that singing is good for kids. So after my daughter was born, I picked up a book of "Sing Along Songs" and got down to the business of singing in lodge to ensure that she will get into a expert college. Right away I come up across an old favorite:
If you lot're happy and you know it clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know information technology
And then your face will surely show information technology,
If you're happy and you know it clap your hands.
My daughter loved information technology — she was doing the motions, clapping hands, stomping feet, shouting "hooray" — simply I was not loving it. The song made no sense! We're there clapping our easily and all the rest and every time our face is supposed to testify that we're happy?
"The transmitted text must be examined and the critic must decide whether information technology is accurate or not (examinatio); if not, his duty is to emend it (emendatio), if this tin be done with a reasonable degree of certainty, or to isolate the corruption."
— Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars (1991)
Housman claimed that when he saw the lines "May the rustling harvest hedgerow/Still the Traveller's Joy entwine" in a newspaper review, he knew immediately that "rustling" was a misprint for "rusting." Thus practice the almost discerning critics root out corruption where others take complacently accustomed the vulgate. Well, I know how he felt. The inconcinnity of "And so your face up will surely show it" must grate on the ear of whatsoever man with poetic feeling, for what has the face to exercise with showing happiness by the clapping of hands? The unease with the received text simply multiplies in the adjacent verse, where the kid, if happy, is invited to "stomp [her] anxiety," and then over again in the next, to "shout hooray," both followed past the aforementioned "And so your face will surely evidence it." The recurring reference to the face when other trunk parts are clearly indicated is at best artless and at worst breathless.
"The first task is to plant what must or may be regarded as transmitted — to make the recension (recensio)."
— Paul Maas, Textual Criticism (1958)
I got into this singing affair to assistance my girl's development. But what'southward the point if we're dealing with corrupt texts like this? So I plopped her down in front of YouTube (information technology's for research, and then it'due south probably beneficial) and we watched every version of "If you're happy and you lot know it" available there (not recommended, by the manner).
This exhaustive/ing survey suggested that in that location are ii main families extant in the tradition. One branch (F) features, in each stanza, line four every bit reported above: "And then your face up will surely show it." Another co-operative (Westward) has "And y'all really want to bear witness it." W's reading is vastly superior to F'due south, as information technology avoids both the conflict between trunk parts and reinscription of the tyranny of the smile (you see what a woke father I am). Simply from an artful point of view, both readings suffer from repetitiveness unworthy of anyone deserving the title of "poet." One suspects banalization in both cases. In such a state of affairs, a fuller arsenal of critical tools is required.
"At best [scholia] tin inform us of Alexandrian scholars' readings, at worst they evidence only to the obtuseness or perverse ingenuity of some medieval reader."
— M.L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique (1973)
Myriad witnesses to the history of this text may exist establish in the secondary tradition. Patently derivative versions such as "When yous're giddy and you know information technology," "If you're a robot and you know it," "If y'all're happy and you know it: chore satisfaction in the low wage service sector," or "If you're happy and y'all know it, it'south your meds" (this last 1 is worth consideration for parents) are of no independent value in the constitution of the text. More intriguing — because they are early on — are testimonia such as that found in Artistic Dramatics for Handicapped Children (1967 [ed: non invented for this satire]) which preserves the reading "Then yous should surely prove it." A similar reading ("And then you lot really ought to prove it") is found in Nursing and Retirement Home Assistants (1966). Also worthy of consideration in this collation is the reading of Play Activities for Boys and Girls (1957), which has "Then your life will surely show it." Joe Raposo's 1971 copyright of the lyrics (along with those for other immortal works such as "Has Anybody Seen my Domestic dog") is of uncertain significance given that the filing does not record which version he regarded as authoritative.
Because a translation of a now-lost Greek text into Classical Armenian was of such value in establishing the text of Theon's Progymnasmata , the casual reader has good reason to assume that translations of our text would provide insight into its history. But what is true for a prose treatise does not agree for poetry, in which the text itself is of secondary importance to metrical definiteness. Thus in a Spanish-language version of the song we find this charming, but for our purposes useless, rhyme: "si tu tienes la razón y no hay oposición, no dejes de hacerlo y muévelos bien" ("If y'all have a good reason and there's no opposition, don't cease and motility them [sc. the hands] well").
"Christian zeal occasionally afflicted texts, equally in the Vienna manuscript of Pseudo-Hippocrates περὶ διαίτης, where the names of the Greek gods take in places been effaced."
—M.L. Westward, op. cit.
I don't know why the early church building would care one fashion or another, simply my collation suggests that what is truthful of pseudo-Hippocrates is true of "If You're Happy and Y'all Know Information technology." Marginal notations of early scholars record ecclesiastical versions of this song that are not, evidently, extant in any edition, including "So your faith volition surely show it" (possibly a corruption of "confront") and the palaeographically inexplicable sequence "…point to heaven in the sky and milk shake easily with ane nearby, if y'all're happy and you know information technology clap your easily."
"Whenever there are 2 or more manuscripts bachelor, the effort must be made to determine their historical human relationship…the attempt will succeed approximately in proportion to the liberty of the tradition from contamination."
— Thousand.L. West, op. cit.
All this labor, and we even so don't know what nosotros should be singing after clapping our hands and all the other motions; the received text provides no grounds for inferring the archtype's reading. Notwithstanding some relationships may tentatively be sketched out. The variant "Faith" (Fa) is likely a corruption of the F branch (though information technology must be admitted that the reverse, secularizing, process is likewise possible). The variations "You really ought to testify it" (O) and "You should surely show it" (South) are, despite their evident antiquity, derivatives of W, maybe the upshot of a paedagogus (or nursing-domicile administrator) abandoning "want" for the imperative mood, frustrated with students' non-compliance with the song'southward directives. "And so your life will surely evidence it" (Fifty) derives from F being contaminated by the imperative mood of Due south. "Point to heaven in the sky and shake easily with one nearby" (C, < caelum) is derived from the ecclesiastical Fa with contagion from some unknown source (ε).
"If the tradition proves to be decadent, nosotros must attempt to remedy it past conjecture (divinatio). This endeavour leads either to a self-evident emendation or to several more or less as satisfying conjectures or to the recognition that a cure by conjecture has not been discovered—a crux."
— Paul Maas, op. cit.
In a situation like this, lesser critics may despair, just the intrepid plow to their own disquisitional faculties. For the most office scholars' interpretive notes on this passage corporeality to petty more than grasping at straws: Miss Linder proposes that F and W amount to "dissimilar verses," Dr. Murphy that F is a kind of "framing" verse to begin and cease a song that regularly uses the verse attested in Due west. These simplistic proposals' only virtue is the recognition that not every verse needs to accept been identical.
As often, inferior critics' judgments lay the background for the discovery of the true solution, which must be this: that F preserves the true reading ("face") of one of what were originally several different verses in the archetype, probably one in which some characteristic of the face was supposed to show happiness (as a pis aller I suggest "blink your eyes" as the most obvious way for a face up to show happiness). In each verse the line corresponded to the body part: "Clap your hands…and so your easily volition surely testify it," "Stomp your feet…so your anxiety will surely show it," "Shout hooray…then your voice will surely show it," etc. F is thus the result of leveling the classic (Ω), peradventure because early performers smiled throughout the song (not knowing what havoc they would wreak on after tradition), making "face" appropriate for every verse in that specific functioning context. W, then, is an attempt to make sense of F; it resolved the incoherence of clapping/confront, stomping/face, etc. by removing body parts from the poesy altogether.
"Unless the manuscript tradition depends on a single witness, it is necessary…to use the established relationship of those which remain (ideally expressed in the class of a stemma codicum or family unit tree) to reconstruct the lost manuscript or manuscripts from which the surviving witnesses descend."
— Reynolds and Wilson, op. cit.
My daughter's teacher at day intendance — I mean, school (where I had to offset putting her and then I would take time to work on this) — asked united states of america to send photographs of family members to make a family unit tree for each kid. I didn't have whatsoever so I sent the stemma codicum that the bear witness suggests for this text:
"Students have sometimes said to me that they recognize the necessity of textual criticism, just they are content to leave it to the editor of the text they are reading and to trust in his superior knowledge. Unfortunately editors are not always people who tin can be trusted."
—M.L. Due west, op. cit.
My edition — the kickoff, to my knowledge, to characteristic a disquisitional apparatus — saves the vocal from the dawdling repetition of the line and also avoids the inevitable incoherence that such repetitions produce. Now if I can just figure out where my daughter went, I'll teach her this version. I'k certain the two of us can drown out the corrupt lyrics on the CD that accompanied the book.
"Is your edition actually necessary?…The intending editor must therefore be clear, get-go of all, that he is able to contribute something for which the critical world volition be grateful."
— M. Fifty. West, op. cit.
What is more important — nay, necessary — than protecting our children from corrupt texts like those found in F? Furthermore, the critical world is hereby saved from watching countless videos of blank-eyed and cartoonish children/animals/robots in order to establish the original text of a pregnant work. But there is a deeper event. Claims that "Like many children's cantations, there are many versions of the lyrics" reflect an indifference to truth (not to mention a disturbing lack of religion in the stemmatic method).
"The practise of textual criticism is more than a safety confronting deception."
—M.L. Westward, op. cit.
γηράσκω ἀεὶ διδασκόμενος. By now my daughter is 23 years one-time, having spent her life as helpmeet to her father'south learned researches, my dreams of an experientially rich childhood for her replaced by my sense of accomplishment at producing an edition which will serve parents (and their children) until some enterprising volume-hunter unearths new readings to shed further lite on the text. At that time, I have no dubiety, my conjectures will be confirmed just every bit the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus confirmed Bentley's emendation of 1 Timothy 6:3. And if (like Bentley'south critics) you don't like the version of the song I've produced, well, I accept three words for you: lectio difficilior potior .
Only you know what I but noticed? The outset verse of "The Wheels on the Bus" describes a visual feature of the charabanc ("…go round and round") while the other verses are all auditory: "Classy, swish, swish," "'Motion on back!'" "Waa waa waa." Truly, the critic'due south piece of work is never done.
Curtis Dozier is the manager of Pharos: Doing Justice to the Classics and the host of The Mirror of Antiquity podcast. He teaches at Vassar College.
wickershaterinew2002.blogspot.com
Source: https://eidolon.pub/toward-a-critical-edition-of-if-youre-happy-and-you-know-it-37991b978f61
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