A good example of the dumbing down of "Shakespeare's" plays to bring them in line with the orthodox theory that their author was slenderly educated and untraveled rustic, may be found in a consideration of the change to Love's Labor's Lost in Act III, scene 1, line 182. Here's a visual of a modern text, in this case the edition of Hardin Craig. While Craig was normally very much opposed to the dumbing down of Shakespeare's works, Craig nevertheless followed suit here, likely without ever knowing he was doing so. Craig's text is on the left, the First Folio's text is on the right:
Because the reproduction of the First Folio is a "halftone" it does not scan as well as the printed text. However there is a clear difference in the line, "This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid." The First Folio's text reads, "This signior Junios, gynat drawfe, don Cupid." Or in modern spelling, "This Signor Julio's giant dwarf, Don Cupid."
Who was "Signor Julio?" If not Julio Romano whose murals in Mantua, in the Palazzo de T., which feature a huge Cupid, are clearly on the author's mind here. It's not the only time Romano was on the Author's mind. In Winter's Tale he showers admiration on one of Romano's statues of Hermione. Long a subject of ridicule among erudite Stratfordians, because it was believed Romano produced no sculpture, further research into Italian art history has proven Romano was widely celebrated in sculpture, painting and architecture! So much for the quaint belief that the Author was ignorant of Italian culture, for want of first hand experience. It was clear to Greenwood that the Author correctly distinguished between the Isola di Rialto and the Ponte di Rialto and had an unusual knowledge of the villas along the Brenta. (116) Greenwood correctly suggests that the Author's clown Gobbo, "reminds us vividly of the Gobbo di Rialto, a stone figure which serves as a supporter to that granite of about a man's height, form which the laws of the Republic were proclaimed." (117)
In any case, the evidence is clear. Stratfordians remain willing to change even the text itself to bring their paradigm into agreement with "literary history."
Here is just one more example. Its in Anthony and Cleopatra, I, ii, 107:
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| Notice the word "winds" its in the First Folio but Strats have replaced it with "minds" which is senseless here. | Here's the change over. "Winds" is a Kentish term, like "earing" used in the next line, a farming term for "wind-rows". |
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