'Labours Wonne': the MS in the vase mystery

So far nine people have voted: 7 to break the vase; 2 not to. Perhaps you could explain your reasoning here. 

This relates to the news item Labours Wonne - your help needed.

What's wrong with you people? I am the 8th person to vote NO - don't break the vase! - and 11 people have votes YES! What? Break an artefact that could be priceless for some pamphlet about Labour winning an election. Are you mad?

Except the Labour Party in the UK was not formed until the early 1900s. And would 'won' have been spelt 'wonne' then? Do we know if this so-called manuscript was printed or hand-written?

Good question WW. I've had a torchlight peek at the trapped bundle of papers and it seems to me it is hand-written in black ink, by nib or quill. Each 's' is long, like an ¦ without the cross-bar, which I have always related to Restoration Comedy, as in: "I will ¦educe you on the ¦ofa". But I suppose it dates back to Shakespeare's time too.

Do we have examples of Shakespeare's handwriting? Can anyone point us to a website, perhaps?

I agree with Welly Watch (kinda). Accurate dating in cases such as this is very important and an eye must always be kept open.

Try the Large Hadron Collider for atomic dating (that is once it is working again).

11 votes YES, 10 votes NO - but hardly any postings on why you have voted that way. Please explain!

And on the stroke of noon it is 11 YES, 12 NO. This means we may never know if the vase contains a manuscript, and if so, of what. Is that a shame?

Ironic that a copy of Shakespeare's follow up play, Loves Labour's WONNE may have been LOST after all. Though in defense of the decision to preserve the vase, it may turn out to be just as important, if not more important an artifact to preserve. If this forum had been hosted on an antique vase website instead, they would surely be glad with this result. We've got 37 or so plays from the bard anyway, thats plenty enough. Sequels are always worse then the original (e.g. Die Hard II, Speed II, George Bush Jnr.) Billy probably wrote just wrote it for the money.

Yes indeed. Or maybe this was the play in which Shakespeare truly validated gay male love. And his wife found it, And fearing people would conclude that was why her husband spent so much time away from Stratford, she stuffed it in the vase his effeminate Venetian friend had given them.

There is a disturbing undercurrent to this forum. It suggests that theatrical types stand alongside accountants, engineers and lawyers in believing that only binary yes/no choices are possible. I am designer - I want to meet all needs rather than play protagonists off against each other. "Yebbit," I hear you cry, "that's where the drama lies!" To which I can only reply - do we not all crave resolution?

I propose the use of chopsticks to grip the inside of the "roll of papers" and turn it until it is tight enough to pull through the hole - after all, it must have been inserted through the self-same orifice.

Meanwhile the vessel, in its pre-ejaculant excitement, may quote Hamlet (Act 3, Sc2): "They fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by."

Now 16 say YES, break the vase (despite Michael's ingenious suggestion for extracting the MS without damage to it or the vase) while 15 say NO (despite Robin's amazing assertion that this could be the long lost MS for Shakespeare's LOVES LABOURS WONNE!)

I'm wondering where to go from here. Perhaps as people start coming on line from other parts of the world we will get some clearer advice.  Feel free to send this link to anyone you know in other climes: http://www.theatreview.org.nz/news/news.php?id=317 

Final count: 17 YES; 15 NO. Thank you to all who played the game!

I would have suggested, had I been in time to influence the "decision", that the world has many antique vases but no copies of the lost play.... so take the chance and break the vase.

You could insure it first, wait six months and then if the scroll turns out to be useless get Van West and Munter to do a break-in. It won't replace the vase, but the payout will allow Warwick to console himself in style!