The Cat Chap: Does Jo Think We're Dumb?

[Caius Marcius]

Granted, one must allow for a certain dumbing down of educational 
standards on both sides of the pond in recent years (Heather Has Two 
Mommies and My Pet Goat casts out both Caliban and Ariel). 
Additionally, one must allow for the fact that a significant 
percentage of the HP fan base was born after Anno Domini 1990 (even 
I, with the mighty cerebellum I am privileged to possess, could not 
make heads or tails of The Tempest when I first attempted to peruse 
the text at the age of eight – though nowadays I frequently serenade 
myself in the shower with Michael Nyman's musical settings of same).  
Nevertheless, I cannot help but react to what strikes me as a 
singularly patronizing parenthesis at jkr.com

"If neither boy was 'pre-ordained' before Voldemort's attack to 
become his possible vanquisher, then the prophecy (like the one the 
witches make to Macbeth, if anyone has read the play of the same 
name)"

"If anyone has read it"?  Jeez Louise, Jo, there might be a tiny 
miniscule fraction of a percent that possibly might have glanced at 
one of the greatest masterpieces of the mightiest of English language 
authors – e.g., the late Richard Harris, who played the role of 
Macbeth several times on stage during his career, Maggie Smith, who 
played Lady M on several occasions, (but alas! that fervent 
antagonist of the Zionist Conspiracy, Alan Rickman, seems to have 
been denied the opportunity to strut and fret his hour upon the 
Macbethian stage, and we all know **WHY**)

Perhaps JKR is a fan of Wodehouse, and supposes that her readers 
operate on the same cultural level of Bertram Wooster (the following 
dialogue is from The Code of The Woosters, Chap. 2)

'That is the problem which is torturing me, Jeeves. I can't make up 
my mind. You remember the fellow you've mentioned to me once or 
twice, who let something wait upon something? You know who I mean — 
the cat chap.'

'Macbeth, sir, a character in a play of that name by the late William 
Shakespeare. He was described as letting "I dare not" wait upon "I 
would", like the poor cat i' th' adage.' (END QUOTE)

The bit of dialogue that Bertie alludes to is in Macbeth, Act I, 
Scene VII as Macbeth and his Lady equivocate over the proposed 
assassination of King Duncan. The "adage" that the Lady refers to is 
a popular Elizabethan saying: "The cat would eat fish, but dare not 
get her feet wet." 

LADY MACBETH.
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem;
Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
Like the poor cat i' the adage?

MACBETH.
Pr'ythee, peace!
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

Let's just hope that JKR will not introduce Hegelian or Kantian 
philosophies into Book Six, since them writers is even more harder to 
read than that Willy Shikespower feller.

    - CMC (don't even get me started on the Earl of Oxford)