“Much a doe about nothing”
– John Florio, Queen Anna’s New World of Words, 1611
John Florio, in his works First Fruits (1578), Second Fruits (1591) and Giardino di Ricreatione (1591) wrote proverbs that today are erroneously attributed to Shakespeare but were originally written by John Florio. Clara Longworth de Chambrun, Shakespeare’s scholar, in her book, Shakespeare, Actor-Poet1 reported the similarities between the two writers concerning proverbs:
John Florio’s Garden of Recreation (1591) is a collection of six thousand proverbs, fine sayings, witty comments and short quotations from Florio’s favourite Italian authors. John Florio loved proverbs and used them extensively both in his works and in life. Image Source.
Florio: It is Labour lost to speak of love (Second Fruits, Folio 71)
Shakespeare takes as a title ‘‘Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
Florio: Much a doe about nothing (Queen Anna’s New World of words, 1611)
Shakespeare takes as a title “Much Ado About Nothing“
Florio: Tutto è bene, che riesce bene (Giardino di Ricreatione, 1591)
Shakespeare takes as a title “All’s Well That Ends Well“
Besides these examples, Shakespeare refers some thirty times to proverbs in such phrases as these:
There is also, in Henry V, what Shakespeare calls “rapid venew of wit,” which is difficult to understand without Florio’s explanation that ”Four is the Devil’s company” (Compagnia di quattro, compagnia di Diavolo)
The disputants in Shakespeare are four in number:
By these parallels, it is obvious that both Shakespeare and Florio used the same conversation techniques, the same method of using proverbs in colloquial speech, the same witty sayings, syllogisms, philosophical reasonings, and they even had the same opinion on various subjects.