Here is an example of falsely identified text corruption in Shakespeare, that I thought served as a good object lesson for any wannabe textual critics, despite/because of its being English-only.
Comedy of Errors 109-113:
I see the jewel best enamelled
Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still
That others touch and, often touching, will
Where gold; and no man that hath a name
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame
Riverside Shakespeare: 109-13 A difficult, possibly corrupt, passage. Herford explains: “The best enamelled jewel tarnishes; but the gold setting keeps its lustre however it may be worn by the touch; similarly, a man of assured reputation can commit domestic infidelity without blasting it.”
Norton Shakespeare: “a difficult passage, possibly owing to omitted lines. The general idea is that reputation, like gold, withstands corruption and yet may be worn away. Her husband’s infidelities have not tarnished his name, but they may diminish her substance.”
The meaning, however, is obvious once you see the solution. The context of this section is that Adriana is complaining about her husband’s infidelity with the Courtezan. Here, gold is money or coins, and in Adriana’s metaphor is like a courtesan. Being handled by many, money does not lose value, even if coins are worn by use. Nor does a courtesan lose her value after many lovers. An enameled jewel, however, like a wife, is spoiled by the touch of others. A man of reputation is not shamed by the possession of money, despite the sordid past of any coin, and (by implication here) neither is he shamed by his possession of a mistress.
The text is correct as given, the language and metaphor are simple and straightforward. Yet it is still enough to confuse generations of English native-language scholars. The difficulty, apparently, experienced by Herford and the Norton/Riverside editors that follow him, is that he tried to understand this as a wife-husband complaint and missed the wife-rival angle. Shakespeare, apparently, was better at putting himself in the woman’s shoes.