Crux is a term applied by palaeographers

Palaeography

Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...

, textual critics

Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

, bibliographers

Bibliography

Bibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...

, and literary scholars to a point of significant corruption in a literary text. More serious than a simple slip of the pen or typographical error, a crux (probably deriving from Latin crux interpretum = "crossroad of interpreters") is difficult or impossible to interpret and resolve. Cruxes occur in a wide range of pre-modern (ancient

Ancient history

Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

, medieval

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, and Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

) texts, printed and manuscript.

Shakespearean examples

Though widely exposed to readers and scholars, the texts of William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's plays yield some of the most famous literary cruxes. Some have been resolved fairly well. In Henry V,

Henry V (play)

Henry V is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to be written in approximately 1599. Its full titles are The Cronicle History of Henry the Fifth and The Life of Henry the Fifth...

 II.iii.16-7, the First Folio

First Folio

Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....

 text has the Hostess describe Falstaff

Falstaff

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...

 on his death-bed like this:

...his nose was sharp as a pen, and 'a Table of green fields.

Lewis Theobald

Lewis Theobald

Lewis Theobald , British textual editor and author, was a landmark figure both in the history of Shakespearean editing and in literary satire...

's editorial correction, "and 'a [he] babbl'd of green fields", has won almost universal acceptance from subsequent editors. Similarly, the "dram of eale" In Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

I,iv,36 can be sensibly interpreted as "dram of ev'l [evil]."

Other Shakespearean cruxes have not been so successfully resolved. In All's Well That Ends Well

All's Well That Ends Well

All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1604 and 1605, and was originally published in the First Folio in 1623....

, IV.ii,38-9, Diana observes to Bertram,

I see that men make ropes in such a scarre,

That we'll forsake ourselves.

Editors have reached no consensus on exactly what "ropes in such a scarre" can mean, or how it should be amended: "no satisfactory explanation or emendation has been offered." Perhaps the best alternative that has been proposed is "may rope 's [us] in such a snare." Another unresolved Shakespearean crux is the "runaway's eyes" in Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

, III,ii,6.

Sometimes a crux will not require emendation, but simply present a knotty problem of comprehension. In Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV , and Henry V...

, IV,i,98-9, Sir Richard Vernon describes Prince Hal and his comrades as appearing:

All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind

bate

Bate

-People:*Ahmade Bate , Kurdish poet and cleric*Anthony Bate , English actor*C. T. Bate , Canadian politician*Charles Spence Bate , British zoologist and dentist*Dorothea Bate , British paleontologist...

d like eagles having lately bath'd...

This is most likely a reference to some obscure assertion about animal behavior, and has sent researchers poring through dusty volumes in search of an explanation.

Typographic conventions

In editions of Greek and Roman authors, a crux is marked off by obeli

Dagger (typography)

A dagger, or obelisk. is a typographical symbol or glyph. The term "obelisk" derives from Greek , which means "little obelus"; from meaning "roasting spit"...

, to indicate that the editor is not confident enough either to follow the manuscript reading or to print a conjecture.