res/the_taming_of_the_shrew.txt

The Taming of the Shrew
by William Shakespeare


Characters in the Play
======================
Characters in the Induction:
  CHRISTOPHER SLY, a beggar
  Hostess of an alehouse
  A Lord
  Huntsmen of the Lord
  Page (disguised as a lady)
  Players
  Servingmen
  Messenger
BAPTISTA MINOLA, father to Katherine and Bianca
KATHERINE, his elder daughter
BIANCA, his younger daughter
PETRUCHIO, suitor to Katherine
Suitors to Bianca:
  GREMIO
  HORTENSIO (later disguised as the teacher Litio)
  LUCENTIO (later disguised as the teacher Cambio)
VINCENTIO, Lucentio's father
Servants to Lucentio:
  TRANIO (later impersonating Lucentio)
  BIONDELLO
A Merchant (later disguised as Vincentio)
Servants to Petruchio:
  GRUMIO
  CURTIS
  NATHANIEL
  PHILLIP
  JOSEPH
  NICHOLAS
  PETER
Widow
Tailor
Haberdasher
Officer
Servants to Baptista and Petruchio


INDUCTION
=========

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Beggar (Christopher Sly) and Hostess.]


SLY  I'll feeze you, in faith.

HOSTESS  A pair of stocks, you rogue!

SLY  You're a baggage! The Slys are no rogues. Look
in the chronicles. We came in with Richard Conqueror.
Therefore, paucas pallabris, let the world
slide. Sessa!

HOSTESS  You will not pay for the glasses you have
burst?

SLY  No, not a denier. Go, by Saint Jeronimy! Go to
thy cold bed and warm thee.	[He lies down.]

HOSTESS  I know my remedy. I must go fetch the
headborough.	[She exits.]

SLY  Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him
by law. I'll not budge an inch, boy. Let him come,
and kindly.	[Falls asleep.]

[Wind horns within. Enter a Lord from hunting, with
his train.]


LORD
Huntsman, I charge thee tender well my hounds.
Breathe Merriman (the poor cur is embossed)
And couple Clowder with the deep-mouthed brach.
Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound!

FIRST HUNTSMAN
Why, Bellman is as good as he, my lord.
He cried upon it at the merest loss,
And twice today picked out the dullest scent.
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

LORD
Thou art a fool. If Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well, and look unto them all.
Tomorrow I intend to hunt again.

FIRST HUNTSMAN  I will, my lord.
[First Huntsman exits.]

LORD, [noticing Sly]
What's here? One dead, or drunk? See doth he
breathe.

SECOND HUNTSMAN
He breathes, my lord. Were he not warmed with ale,
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.

LORD
O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were conveyed to bed,
Wrapped in sweet clothes, rings put upon his
fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?

THIRD HUNTSMAN
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.

SECOND HUNTSMAN
It would seem strange unto him when he waked.

LORD
Even as a flatt'ring dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up, and manage well the jest.
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet;
Procure me music ready when he wakes
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound.
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight
And, with a low, submissive reverence,
Say "What is it your Honor will command?"
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of rosewater and bestrewed with flowers,
Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
And say "Will 't please your Lordship cool your
hands?"
Someone be ready with a costly suit,
And ask him what apparel he will wear.
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
And that his lady mourns at his disease.
Persuade him that he hath been lunatic,
And when he says he is, say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs.
It will be pastime passing excellent
If it be husbanded with modesty.

THIRD HUNTSMAN
My lord, I warrant you we will play our part
As he shall think by our true diligence
He is no less than what we say he is.

LORD
Take him up gently, and to bed with him,
And each one to his office when he wakes.
[Sly is carried out.]
[Sound trumpets within.]
Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds.
[Servingman exits.]
Belike some noble gentleman that means
(Traveling some journey) to repose him here.

[Enter Servingman.]

How now? Who is it?

SERVINGMAN  An 't please your Honor, players
That offer service to your Lordship.

LORD
Bid them come near.

[Enter Players.]

Now, fellows, you are welcome.

PLAYERS  We thank your Honor.

LORD
Do you intend to stay with me tonight?

FIRST PLAYER
So please your Lordship to accept our duty.

LORD
With all my heart. This fellow I remember
Since once he played a farmer's eldest son.--
'Twas where you wooed the gentlewoman so well.
I have forgot your name, but sure that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally performed.

SECOND PLAYER
I think 'twas Soto that your Honor means.

LORD
'Tis very true. Thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in happy time,
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play tonight;
But I am doubtful of your modesties,
Lest, over-eying of his odd behavior
(For yet his Honor never heard a play),
You break into some merry passion,
And so offend him. For I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile, he grows impatient.

FIRST PLAYER
Fear not, my lord, we can contain ourselves
Were he the veriest antic in the world.

LORD, [to a Servingman]
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery
And give them friendly welcome every one.
Let them want nothing that my house affords.
[One exits with the Players.]
Sirrah, go you to Bartholomew, my page,
And see him dressed in all suits like a lady.
That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber,
And call him "Madam," do him obeisance.
Tell him from me, as he will win my love,
He bear himself with honorable action,
Such as he hath observed in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished.
Such duty to the drunkard let him do
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say "What is 't your Honor will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?"
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed
To see her noble lord restored to health,
Who, for this seven years, hath esteemed him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.
And if the boy have not a woman's gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which (in a napkin being close conveyed)
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatched with all the haste thou canst.
Anon I'll give thee more instructions.
[A Servingman exits.]
I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman.
I long to hear him call the drunkard "husband"!
And how my men will stay themselves from
laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant,
I'll in to counsel them. Haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
[They exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter aloft Christopher Sly, the drunkard, with
Attendants, some with apparel, basin and ewer, and
other appurtenances, and Lord dressed as an Attendant.]


SLY  For God's sake, a pot of small ale.

FIRST SERVINGMAN
Will 't please your Lord drink a cup of sack?

SECOND SERVINGMAN
Will 't please your Honor taste of these conserves?

THIRD SERVINGMAN
What raiment will your Honor wear today?

SLY  I am Christophero Sly! Call not me "Honor" nor
"Lordship." I ne'er drank sack in my life. An if you
give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef.
Ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear, for I have no
more doublets than backs, no more stockings than
legs, nor no more shoes than feet, nay sometime
more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look
through the over-leather.

LORD, [as Attendant]
Heaven cease this idle humor in your Honor!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!

SLY  What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher
Sly, old Sly's son of Burton Heath, by birth a
peddler, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation
a bearherd, and now by present profession a
tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot,
if she know me not! If she say I am not fourteen
pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the
lying'st knave in Christendom. What, I am not
bestraught! Here's--

THIRD SERVINGMAN
O, this it is that makes your lady mourn.

SECOND SERVINGMAN
O, this is it that makes your servants droop.

LORD, [as Attendant]
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck.
Wilt thou have music? Hark, Apollo plays,	[Music.]
And twenty caged nightingales do sing.
Or wilt thou sleep? We'll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimmed up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk, we will bestrew the ground.
Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapped,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.

FIRST SERVINGMAN
Say thou wilt course. Thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.

SECOND SERVINGMAN
Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

LORD, [as Attendant]
We'll show thee Io as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.

THIRD SERVINGMAN
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.

LORD, [as Attendant]
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord;
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.

FIRST SERVINGMAN
And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o'errun her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world--
And yet she is inferior to none.

SLY
Am I a lord, and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak,
I smell sweet savors, and I feel soft things.
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed
And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight,
And once again a pot o' the smallest ale.

SECOND SERVINGMAN
Will 't please your Mightiness to wash your hands?
O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
Or, when you waked, so waked as if you slept.

SLY
These fifteen years! By my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?

FIRST SERVINGMAN
Oh, yes, my lord, but very idle words.
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say you were beaten out of door,
And rail upon the hostess of the house,
And say you would present her at the leet
Because she brought stone jugs and no sealed
quarts.
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.

SLY  Ay, the woman's maid of the house.

THIRD SERVINGMAN
Why, sir, you know no house, nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckoned up,
As Stephen Sly and old John Naps of Greete,
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell,
And twenty more such names and men as these,
Which never were, nor no man ever saw.

SLY  Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!

ALL  Amen.

SLY  I thank thee. Thou shalt not lose by it.

[Enter Page as Lady, with Attendants.]


PAGE, [as Lady]  How fares my noble lord?

SLY  Marry, I fare well, for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?

PAGE, [as Lady]
Here, noble lord. What is thy will with her?

SLY
Are you my wife, and will not call me "husband"?
My men should call me "lord." I am your goodman.

PAGE, [as Lady]
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband,
I am your wife in all obedience.

SLY
I know it well.--What must I call her?

LORD, [as Attendant]  "Madam."

SLY  "Alice Madam," or "Joan Madam"?

LORD
"Madam," and nothing else. So lords call ladies.

SLY
Madam wife, they say that I have dreamed
And slept above some fifteen year or more.

PAGE, [as Lady]
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandoned from your bed.

SLY
'Tis much.--Servants, leave me and her alone.--
Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.

PAGE, [as Lady]
Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two;
Or if not so, until the sun be set.
For your physicians have expressly charged,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed.
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.

SLY  Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long; but
I would be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will
therefore tarry in despite of the flesh and the
blood.

[Enter a Messenger.]


MESSENGER
Your Honor's players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy,
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your
blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.

SLY  Marry, I will. Let them play it.	[Messenger exits.]
Is not a comonty a Christmas gambold or a tumbling
trick?

PAGE, [as Lady]
No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.

SLY  What, household stuff?

PAGE, [as Lady]  It is a kind of history.

SLY  Well, we'll see 't. Come, madam wife, sit by my
side, and let the world slip. We shall ne'er be
younger.
[They sit.]


ACT 1
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Flourish. Enter Lucentio and his man Tranio.]


LUCENTIO
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy,
And by my father's love and leave am armed
With his goodwill and thy good company.
My trusty servant well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,
Gave me my being, and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii.
Vincentio's son, brought up in Florence,
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study
Virtue, and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind, for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

TRANIO
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine.
I am in all affected as yourself,
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray,
Or so devote to Aristotle's checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practice rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics--
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en.
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

LUCENTIO
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.

[Enter Baptista with his two daughters, Katherine and
Bianca; Gremio, a pantaloon, and Hortensio, suitors
to Bianca.]

But stay awhile! What company is this?

TRANIO
Master, some show to welcome us to town.
[Lucentio and Tranio stand by.]

BAPTISTA, [to Gremio and Hortensio]
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolved you know:
That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder.
If either of you both love Katherine,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.

GREMIO
To cart her, rather. She's too rough for me.--
There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?

KATHERINE, [to Baptista]
I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

HORTENSIO
"Mates," maid? How mean you that? No mates for
you,
Unless you were of gentler, milder mold.

KATHERINE
I' faith, sir, you shall never need to fear.
Iwis it is not halfway to her heart.
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool
And paint your face and use you like a fool.

HORTENSIO
From all such devils, good Lord, deliver us!

GREMIO  And me too, good Lord.

TRANIO, [aside to Lucentio]
Husht, master, here's some good pastime toward;
That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.

LUCENTIO, [aside to Tranio]
But in the other's silence do I see
Maid's mild behavior and sobriety.
Peace, Tranio.

TRANIO, [aside to Lucentio]
Well said, master. Mum, and gaze your fill.

BAPTISTA, [to Gremio and Hortensio]
Gentlemen, that I may soon make good
What I have said--Bianca, get you in,
And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,
For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.

KATHERINE
A pretty peat! It is best
Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.

BIANCA
Sister, content you in my discontent.--
Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe.
My books and instruments shall be my company,
On them to look and practice by myself.

LUCENTIO, [aside to Tranio]
Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak!

HORTENSIO
Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?
Sorry am I that our goodwill effects
Bianca's grief.

GREMIO  Why will you mew her up,
Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
And make her bear the penance of her tongue?

BAPTISTA
Gentlemen, content you. I am resolved.--
Go in, Bianca.	[Bianca exits.]
And for I know she taketh most delight
In music, instruments, and poetry,
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house
Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
Or, Signior Gremio, you know any such,
Prefer them hither. For to cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up.
And so, farewell.--Katherine, you may stay,
For I have more to commune with Bianca.	[He exits.]

KATHERINE
Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not?
What, shall I be appointed hours as though, belike,
I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!
[She exits.]

GREMIO  You may go to the Devil's dam! Your gifts are
so good here's none will hold you.--Their love is
not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails
together and fast it fairly out. Our cake's dough on
both sides. Farewell. Yet for the love I bear my
sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit
man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will
wish him to her father.

HORTENSIO  So will I, Signior Gremio. But a word, I
pray. Though the nature of our quarrel yet never
brooked parle, know now upon advice, it toucheth
us both (that we may yet again have access to our
fair mistress and be happy rivals in Bianca's love) to
labor and effect one thing specially.

GREMIO  What's that, I pray?

HORTENSIO  Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

GREMIO  A husband? A devil!

HORTENSIO  I say "a husband."

GREMIO  I say "a devil." Think'st thou, Hortensio,
though her father be very rich, any man is so very a
fool to be married to hell?

HORTENSIO  Tush, Gremio. Though it pass your patience
and mine to endure her loud alarums, why,
man, there be good fellows in the world, an a man
could light on them, would take her with all faults,
and money enough.

GREMIO  I cannot tell. But I had as lief take her dowry
with this condition: to be whipped at the high cross
every morning.

HORTENSIO  Faith, as you say, there's small choice in
rotten apples. But come, since this bar in law
makes us friends, it shall be so far forth friendly
maintained till by helping Baptista's eldest daughter
to a husband we set his youngest free for a
husband, and then have to 't afresh. Sweet Bianca!
Happy man be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the
ring. How say you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO  I am agreed, and would I had given him the
best horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would
thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid
the house of her. Come on.
[Gremio and Hortensio exit.
Tranio and Lucentio remain onstage.]

TRANIO
I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?

LUCENTIO
O Tranio, till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely.
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love-in-idleness,
And now in plainness do confess to thee
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was:
Tranio, I burn, I pine! I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst.
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

TRANIO
Master, it is no time to chide you now.
Affection is not rated from the heart.
If love have touched you, naught remains but so:
Redime te captum quam queas minimo.

LUCENTIO
Gramercies, lad. Go forward. This contents;
The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.

TRANIO
Master, you looked so longly on the maid,
Perhaps you marked not what's the pith of all.

LUCENTIO
O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,
Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand
When with his knees he kissed the Cretan strand.

TRANIO
Saw you no more? Marked you not how her sister
Began to scold and raise up such a storm
That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?

LUCENTIO
Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,
And with her breath she did perfume the air.
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

TRANIO, [aside]
Nay, then 'tis time to stir him from his trance.--
I pray, awake, sir! If you love the maid,
Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it
stands:
Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd
That till the father rid his hands of her,
Master, your love must live a maid at home,
And therefore has he closely mewed her up,
Because she will not be annoyed with suitors.

LUCENTIO
Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!
But art thou not advised he took some care
To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?

TRANIO
Ay, marry, am I, sir--and now 'tis plotted!

LUCENTIO
I have it, Tranio!

TRANIO  Master, for my hand,
Both our inventions meet and jump in one.

LUCENTIO
Tell me thine first.

TRANIO  You will be schoolmaster
And undertake the teaching of the maid:
That's your device.

LUCENTIO  It is. May it be done?

TRANIO
Not possible. For who shall bear your part
And be in Padua here Vincentio's son,
Keep house, and ply his book, welcome his friends,
Visit his countrymen and banquet them?

LUCENTIO
Basta, content thee, for I have it full.
We have not yet been seen in any house,
Nor can we be distinguished by our faces
For man or master. Then it follows thus:
Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,
Keep house, and port, and servants, as I should.
I will some other be, some Florentine,
Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.
'Tis hatched, and shall be so. Tranio, at once
Uncase thee. Take my colored hat and cloak.
[They exchange clothes.]
When Biondello comes, he waits on thee,
But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.

TRANIO  So had you need.
In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
And I am tied to be obedient
(For so your father charged me at our parting:
"Be serviceable to my son," quoth he,
Although I think 'twas in another sense),
I am content to be Lucentio,
Because so well I love Lucentio.

LUCENTIO
Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves,
And let me be a slave, t' achieve that maid
Whose sudden sight hath thralled my wounded eye.

[Enter Biondello.]

Here comes the rogue.--Sirrah, where have you
been?

BIONDELLO
Where have I been? Nay, how now, where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes?
Or you stolen his? Or both? Pray, what's the news?

LUCENTIO
Sirrah, come hither. 'Tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
Your fellow, Tranio here, to save my life,
Puts my apparel and my count'nance on,
And I for my escape have put on his;
For in a quarrel since I came ashore
I killed a man and fear I was descried.
Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
While I make way from hence to save my life.
You understand me?

BIONDELLO  Ay, sir. [Aside.] Ne'er a whit.

LUCENTIO
And not a jot of "Tranio" in your mouth.
Tranio is changed into Lucentio.

BIONDELLO
The better for him. Would I were so too.

TRANIO
So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest
daughter.
But, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master's, I
advise
You use your manners discreetly in all kind of
companies.
When I am alone, why then I am Tranio;
But in all places else, your master Lucentio.

LUCENTIO  Tranio, let's go. One thing more rests, that
thyself execute, to make one among these wooers. If
thou ask me why, sufficeth my reasons are both
good and weighty.	[They exit.]
[The Presenters above speak.]

FIRST SERVINGMAN
My lord, you nod. You do not mind the play.

SLY  Yes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely.
Comes there any more of it?

PAGE, [as Lady]  My lord, 'tis but begun.

SLY  'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady.
Would 'twere done.
[They sit and mark.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Petruchio and his man Grumio.]


PETRUCHIO
Verona, for a while I take my leave
To see my friends in Padua, but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio. And I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.

GRUMIO  Knock, sir? Whom should I knock? Is there
any man has rebused your Worship?

PETRUCHIO  Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.

GRUMIO  Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir,
that I should knock you here, sir?

PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me at this gate
And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.

GRUMIO
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock
you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.

PETRUCHIO  Will it not be?
Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring it.
I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.
[He wrings him by the ears. Grumio falls.]

GRUMIO  Help, mistress, help! My master is mad.

PETRUCHIO  Now knock when I bid you, sirrah
villain.

[Enter Hortensio.]


HORTENSIO  How now, what's the matter? My old
friend Grumio and my good friend Petruchio? How
do you all at Verona?

PETRUCHIO
Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?
Con tutto il cuore ben trovato, may I say.

HORTENSIO  Alia nostra casa ben venuto, molto
honorato signor mio Petruchio.--Rise, Grumio,
rise. We will compound this quarrel.	[Grumio rises.]

GRUMIO  Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in
Latin. If this be not a lawful cause for me to leave
his service--look you, sir: he bid me knock him
and rap him soundly, sir. Well, was it fit for a
servant to use his master so, being perhaps, for
aught I see, two-and-thirty, a pip out?
Whom, would to God, I had well knocked at first,
Then had not Grumio come by the worst.

PETRUCHIO
A senseless villain, good Hortensio.
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate
And could not get him for my heart to do it.

GRUMIO  Knock at the gate? O, heavens, spake you not
these words plain: "Sirrah, knock me here, rap me
here, knock me well, and knock me soundly"? And
come you now with "knocking at the gate"?

PETRUCHIO
Sirrah, begone, or talk not, I advise you.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, patience. I am Grumio's pledge.
Why, this' a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,
Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.
And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale
Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?

PETRUCHIO
Such wind as scatters young men through the world
To seek their fortunes farther than at home,
Where small experience grows. But in a few,
Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceased,
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Happily to wive and thrive, as best I may.
Crowns in my purse I have and goods at home,
And so am come abroad to see the world.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee
And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favored wife?
Thou 'dst thank me but a little for my counsel--
And yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich,
And very rich. But thou 'rt too much my friend,
And I'll not wish thee to her.

PETRUCHIO
Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice. And therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife
(As wealth is burden of my wooing dance),
Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse,
She moves me not, or not removes at least
Affection's edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas.
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

GRUMIO, [to Hortensio]  Nay, look you, sir, he tells you
flatly what his mind is. Why, give him gold enough
and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby, or an
old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she
have as many diseases as two-and-fifty horses. Why,
nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, since we are stepped thus far in,
I will continue that I broached in jest.
I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife
With wealth enough, and young and beauteous,
Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman.
Her only fault, and that is faults enough,
Is that she is intolerable curst,
And shrewd, and froward, so beyond all measure
That, were my state far worser than it is,
I would not wed her for a mine of gold.

PETRUCHIO
Hortensio, peace. Thou know'st not gold's effect.
Tell me her father's name, and 'tis enough;
For I will board her, though she chide as loud
As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.

HORTENSIO
Her father is Baptista Minola,
An affable and courteous gentleman.
Her name is Katherina Minola,
Renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue.

PETRUCHIO
I know her father, though I know not her,
And he knew my deceased father well.
I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her,
And therefore let me be thus bold with you
To give you over at this first encounter--
Unless you will accompany me thither.

GRUMIO, [to Hortensio]  I pray you, sir, let him go while
the humor lasts. O' my word, an she knew him as
well as I do, she would think scolding would do little
good upon him. She may perhaps call him half a
score knaves or so. Why, that's nothing; an he begin
once, he'll rail in his rope tricks. I'll tell you what,
sir, an she stand him but a little, he will throw a
figure in her face and so disfigure her with it that
she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat.
You know him not, sir.

HORTENSIO
Tarry, Petruchio. I must go with thee,
For in Baptista's keep my treasure is.
He hath the jewel of my life in hold,
His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca,
And her withholds from me and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love,
Supposing it a thing impossible,
For those defects I have before rehearsed,
That ever Katherina will be wooed.
Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,
That none shall have access unto Bianca
Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.

GRUMIO  "Katherine the curst,"
A title for a maid, of all titles the worst.

HORTENSIO
Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace
And offer me disguised in sober robes
To old Baptista as a schoolmaster
Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca,
That so I may, by this device at least,
Have leave and leisure to make love to her
And unsuspected court her by herself.

GRUMIO  Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old
folks, how the young folks lay their heads together!

[Enter Gremio and Lucentio, disguised as Cambio, a
schoolmaster.]

Master, master, look about you. Who goes there, ha?

HORTENSIO
Peace, Grumio, it is the rival of my love.
Petruchio, stand by awhile.
[Petruchio, Hortensio, and Grumio stand aside.]

GRUMIO, [aside]
A proper stripling, and an amorous.

GREMIO, [to Lucentio]
O, very well, I have perused the note.
Hark you, sir, I'll have them very fairly bound,
All books of love. See that at any hand,
And see you read no other lectures to her.
You understand me. Over and beside
Signior Baptista's liberality,
I'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too.
And let me have them very well perfumed,
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to. What will you read to her?

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you
As for my patron, stand you so assured,
As firmly as yourself were still in place,
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
Than you--unless you were a scholar, sir.

GREMIO
O this learning, what a thing it is!

GRUMIO, [aside]
O this woodcock, what an ass it is!

PETRUCHIO, [aside]  Peace, sirrah.

HORTENSIO, [aside]
Grumio, mum.	[Coming forward.]
God save you, Signior Gremio.

GREMIO
And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.
Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.
I promised to enquire carefully
About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca,
And by good fortune I have lighted well
On this young man, for learning and behavior
Fit for her turn, well read in poetry
And other books--good ones, I warrant you.

HORTENSIO
'Tis well. And I have met a gentleman
Hath promised me to help me to another,
A fine musician to instruct our mistress.
So shall I no whit be behind in duty
To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.

GREMIO
Beloved of me, and that my deeds shall prove.

GRUMIO, [aside]  And that his bags shall prove.

HORTENSIO
Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love.
Listen to me, and if you speak me fair
I'll tell you news indifferent good for either.
[Presenting Petruchio.]
Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,
Upon agreement from us to his liking,
Will undertake to woo curst Katherine,
Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.

GREMIO  So said, so done, is well.
Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?

PETRUCHIO
I know she is an irksome, brawling scold.
If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.

GREMIO
No? Sayst me so, friend? What countryman?

PETRUCHIO
Born in Verona, old Antonio's son.
My father dead, my fortune lives for me,
And I do hope good days and long to see.

GREMIO
Oh, sir, such a life with such a wife were strange.
But if you have a stomach, to 't, i' God's name!
You shall have me assisting you in all.
But will you woo this wildcat?

PETRUCHIO  Will I live?

GRUMIO
Will he woo her? Ay, or I'll hang her.

PETRUCHIO
Why came I hither but to that intent?
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puffed up with winds,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?
Tush, tush, fear boys with bugs!

GRUMIO  For he fears none.

GREMIO  Hortensio, hark.
This gentleman is happily arrived,
My mind presumes, for his own good and yours.

HORTENSIO
I promised we would be contributors
And bear his charge of wooing whatsoe'er.

GREMIO
And so we will, provided that he win her.

GRUMIO
I would I were as sure of a good dinner.

[Enter Tranio, disguised as Lucentio, and Biondello.]


TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Gentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold,
Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way
To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?

BIONDELLO  He that has the two fair daughters--is 't
he you mean?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  Even he, Biondello.

GREMIO
Hark you, sir, you mean not her to--

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Perhaps him and her, sir. What have you to do?

PETRUCHIO
Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.

LUCENTIO, [aside]
Well begun, Tranio.

HORTENSIO  Sir, a word ere you go.
Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
An if I be, sir, is it any offense?

GREMIO
No, if without more words you will get you hence.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Why sir, I pray, are not the streets as free
For me, as for you?

GREMIO  But so is not she.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
For what reason, I beseech you?

GREMIO
For this reason, if you'll know:
That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.

HORTENSIO
That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Softly, my masters. If you be gentlemen,
Do me this right: hear me with patience.
Baptista is a noble gentleman
To whom my father is not all unknown,
And were his daughter fairer than she is,
She may more suitors have, and me for one.
Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers.
Then well one more may fair Bianca have.
And so she shall. Lucentio shall make one,
Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.

GREMIO
What, this gentleman will out-talk us all!

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
Sir, give him head; I know he'll prove a jade.

PETRUCHIO
Hortensio, to what end are all these words?

HORTENSIO, [to Tranio]
Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,
Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two,
The one as famous for a scolding tongue
As is the other for beauteous modesty.

PETRUCHIO
Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.

GREMIO
Yea, leave that labor to great Hercules,
And let it be more than Alcides' twelve.

PETRUCHIO, [to Tranio]
Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:
The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,
Her father keeps from all access of suitors
And will not promise her to any man
Until the elder sister first be wed.
The younger then is free, and not before.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
If it be so, sir, that you are the man
Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest,
And if you break the ice and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free
For our access, whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.

HORTENSIO
Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive.
And since you do profess to be a suitor,
You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,
To whom we all rest generally beholding.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,
Please you we may contrive this afternoon
And quaff carouses to our mistress' health,
And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

GRUMIO and BIONDELLO
O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.

HORTENSIO
The motion's good indeed, and be it so.--
Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.
[They exit.]


ACT 2
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Katherine and Bianca with her hands tied.]


BIANCA
Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me.
That I disdain. But for these other goods--
Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment to my petticoat,
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.

KATHERINE
Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell
Whom thou lov'st best. See thou dissemble not.

BIANCA
Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.

KATHERINE
Minion, thou liest. Is 't not Hortensio?

BIANCA
If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I'll plead for you myself, but you shall have him.

KATHERINE
O, then belike you fancy riches more.
You will have Gremio to keep you fair.

BIANCA
Is it for him you do envy me so?
Nay, then, you jest, and now I well perceive
You have but jested with me all this while.
I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.
[Katherine strikes her.]

KATHERINE
If that be jest, then all the rest was so.

[Enter Baptista.]


BAPTISTA
Why, how now, dame, whence grows this
insolence?--
Bianca, stand aside.--Poor girl, she weeps!
[He unties her hands.]
[To Bianca.] Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.
[To Katherine.] For shame, thou hilding of a devilish
spirit!
Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong
thee?
When did she cross thee with a bitter word?

KATHERINE
Her silence flouts me, and I'll be revenged!
[She flies after Bianca.]

BAPTISTA
What, in my sight?--Bianca, get thee in.
[Bianca exits.]

KATHERINE
What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
She is your treasure, she must have a husband,
I must dance barefoot on her wedding day
And, for your love to her, lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me. I will go sit and weep
Till I can find occasion of revenge.	[She exits.]

BAPTISTA
Was ever gentleman thus grieved as I?
But who comes here?

[Enter Gremio; Lucentio disguised as Cambio
in the habit of a mean man; Petruchio with
Hortensio disguised as Litio; and Tranio disguised
as Lucentio, with his boy, Biondello bearing a lute
and books.]


GREMIO  Good morrow, neighbor Baptista.

BAPTISTA  Good morrow, neighbor Gremio.--God
save you, gentlemen.

PETRUCHIO
And you, good sir. Pray, have you not a daughter
Called Katherina, fair and virtuous?

BAPTISTA
I have a daughter, sir, called Katherina.

GREMIO, [to Petruchio]
You are too blunt. Go to it orderly.

PETRUCHIO
You wrong me, Signior Gremio. Give me leave.--
I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,
That hearing of her beauty and her wit,
Her affability and bashful modesty,
Her wondrous qualities and mild behavior,
Am bold to show myself a forward guest
Within your house, to make mine eye the witness
Of that report which I so oft have heard,
And, for an entrance to my entertainment,
I do present you with a man of mine,
[Presenting Hortensio, disguised as Litio]
Cunning in music and the mathematics,
To instruct her fully in those sciences,
Whereof I know she is not ignorant.
Accept of him, or else you do me wrong.
His name is Litio, born in Mantua.

BAPTISTA
You're welcome, sir, and he for your good sake.
But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,
She is not for your turn, the more my grief.

PETRUCHIO
I see you do not mean to part with her,
Or else you like not of my company.

BAPTISTA
Mistake me not. I speak but as I find.
Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?

PETRUCHIO
Petruchio is my name, Antonio's son,
A man well known throughout all Italy.

BAPTISTA
I know him well. You are welcome for his sake.

GREMIO
Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray
Let us that are poor petitioners speak too!
Bacare, you are marvelous forward.

PETRUCHIO
O, pardon me, Signior Gremio, I would fain be
doing.

GREMIO
I doubt it not, sir. But you will curse your wooing.
[To Baptista.] Neighbor, this is a gift very grateful,
I am sure of it. To express the like kindness, myself,
that have been more kindly beholding to you than
any, freely give unto you this young scholar [presenting
Lucentio, disguised as Cambio] that hath
been long studying at Rheims, as cunning in Greek,
Latin, and other languages as the other in music and
mathematics. His name is Cambio. Pray accept his
service.

BAPTISTA  A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.--Welcome,
good Cambio. [To Tranio as Lucentio.] But,
gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger. May I
be so bold to know the cause of your coming?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,
That being a stranger in this city here
Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,
Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.
Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me,
In the preferment of the eldest sister.
This liberty is all that I request,
That, upon knowledge of my parentage,
I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo
And free access and favor as the rest.
And toward the education of your daughters
I here bestow a simple instrument
And this small packet of Greek and Latin books.
[Biondello comes forward with the gifts.]
If you accept them, then their worth is great.

BAPTISTA
Lucentio is your name. Of whence, I pray?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Of Pisa, sir, son to Vincentio.

BAPTISTA
A mighty man of Pisa. By report
I know him well. You are very welcome, sir.
[To Hortensio as Litio.] Take you the lute,
[To Lucentio as Cambio.] and you the set of books.
You shall go see your pupils presently.
Holla, within!

[Enter a Servant.]

Sirrah, lead these gentlemen
To my daughters, and tell them both
These are their tutors. Bid them use them well.
[Servant exits with Hortensio and Lucentio.]
We will go walk a little in the orchard,
And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.

PETRUCHIO
Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have bettered rather than decreased.
Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

BAPTISTA
After my death, the one half of my lands,
And, in possession, twenty thousand crowns.

PETRUCHIO
And, for that dowry, I'll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever.
Let specialties be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.

BAPTISTA
Ay, when the special thing is well obtained,
That is, her love, for that is all in all.

PETRUCHIO
Why, that is nothing. For I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together,
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all.
So I to her and so she yields to me,
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.

BAPTISTA
Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed.
But be thou armed for some unhappy words.

PETRUCHIO
Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,
That shakes not, though they blow perpetually.

[Enter Hortensio as Litio with his head broke.]


BAPTISTA
How now, my friend, why dost thou look so pale?

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

BAPTISTA
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
I think she'll sooner prove a soldier!
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.

BAPTISTA
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
Why, no, for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bowed her hand to teach her fingering,
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
" 'Frets' call you these?" quoth she. "I'll fume with
them!"
And with that word she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way,
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute,
While she did call me "rascal fiddler,"
And "twangling Jack," with twenty such vile terms,
As had she studied to misuse me so.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench.
I love her ten times more than ere I did.
O, how I long to have some chat with her!

BAPTISTA, [to Hortensio as Litio]
Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited.
Proceed in practice with my younger daughter.
She's apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.--
Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,
Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?

PETRUCHIO
I pray you do. I'll attend her here--
[All but Petruchio exit.]
And woo her with some spirit when she comes!
Say that she rail, why then I'll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.
Say that she frown, I'll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly washed with dew.
Say she be mute and will not speak a word,
Then I'll commend her volubility
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.
If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks
As though she bid me stay by her a week.
If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.
But here she comes--and now, Petruchio, speak.

[Enter Katherine.]

Good morrow, Kate, for that's your name, I hear.

KATHERINE
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing.
They call me Katherine that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIO
You lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst.
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate
(For dainties are all Kates)--and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation:
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded
(Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs),
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

KATHERINE
"Moved," in good time! Let him that moved you
hither
Remove you hence. I knew you at the first
You were a movable.

PETRUCHIO
Why, what's a movable?

KATHERINE  A joint stool.

PETRUCHIO
Thou hast hit it. Come, sit on me.

KATHERINE
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

PETRUCHIO
Women are made to bear, and so are you.

KATHERINE
No such jade as you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIO
Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee,
For knowing thee to be but young and light--

KATHERINE
Too light for such a swain as you to catch,
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIO
"Should be"--should buzz!

KATHERINE  Well ta'en, and like a
buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
O slow-winged turtle, shall a buzzard take thee?

KATHERINE
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO
Come, come, you wasp! I' faith, you are too angry.

KATHERINE
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO
My remedy is then to pluck it out.

KATHERINE
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.

PETRUCHIO
Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.

KATHERINE  In his tongue.

PETRUCHIO  Whose tongue?

KATHERINE
Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell.

PETRUCHIO  What, with my tongue in your tail?
Nay, come again, good Kate. I am a gentleman--

KATHERINE  That I'll try.	[She strikes him.]

PETRUCHIO
I swear I'll cuff you if you strike again.

KATHERINE  So may you lose your arms.
If you strike me, you are no gentleman,
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

PETRUCHIO
A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books.

KATHERINE  What is your crest? A coxcomb?

PETRUCHIO
A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.

KATHERINE
No cock of mine. You crow too like a craven.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, come, Kate, come. You must not look so sour.

KATHERINE
It is my fashion when I see a crab.

PETRUCHIO
Why, here's no crab, and therefore look not sour.

KATHERINE  There is, there is.

PETRUCHIO
Then show it me.

KATHERINE  Had I a glass, I would.

PETRUCHIO  What, you mean my face?

KATHERINE  Well aimed of such a young one.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.

KATHERINE
Yet you are withered.

PETRUCHIO  'Tis with cares.

KATHERINE  I care not.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, hear you, Kate--in sooth, you 'scape not so.

KATHERINE
I chafe you if I tarry. Let me go.

PETRUCHIO
No, not a whit. I find you passing gentle.
'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar.
For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing
courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers.
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk.
But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers,
With gentle conference, soft, and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O sland'rous world! Kate like the hazel twig
Is straight, and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazelnuts, and sweeter than the kernels.
O, let me see thee walk! Thou dost not halt.

KATHERINE
Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.

PETRUCHIO
Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O, be thou Dian and let her be Kate,
And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful.

KATHERINE
Where did you study all this goodly speech?

PETRUCHIO
It is extempore, from my mother wit.

KATHERINE
A witty mother, witless else her son.

PETRUCHIO  Am I not wise?

KATHERINE  Yes, keep you warm.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed.
And therefore, setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife, your dowry 'greed on,
And, will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn,
For by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,
Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,
Thou must be married to no man but me.
For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.

[Enter Baptista, Gremio, and Tranio as Lucentio.]

Here comes your father. Never make denial.
I must and will have Katherine to my wife.

BAPTISTA
Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my
daughter?

PETRUCHIO  How but well, sir? How but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.

BAPTISTA
Why, how now, daughter Katherine? In your
dumps?

KATHERINE
Call you me daughter? Now I promise you
You have showed a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half lunatic,
A madcap ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.

PETRUCHIO
Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world
That talked of her have talked amiss of her.
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she's not froward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn.
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity.
And to conclude, we have 'greed so well together
That upon Sunday is the wedding day.

KATHERINE
I'll see thee hanged on Sunday first.

GREMIO  Hark, Petruchio, she says she'll see thee
hanged first.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  Is this your speeding? Nay,
then, goodnight our part.

PETRUCHIO
Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself.
If she and I be pleased, what's that to you?
'Tis bargained 'twixt us twain, being alone,
That she shall still be curst in company.
I tell you, 'tis incredible to believe
How much she loves me. O, the kindest Kate!
She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss
She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,
That in a twink she won me to her love.
O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see
How tame, when men and women are alone,
A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.--
Give me thy hand, Kate. I will unto Venice
To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding day.--
Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests.
I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.

BAPTISTA
I know not what to say, but give me your hands.
God send you joy, Petruchio. 'Tis a match.

GREMIO and TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Amen, say we. We will be witnesses.

PETRUCHIO
Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.
I will to Venice. Sunday comes apace.
We will have rings, and things, and fine array,
And kiss me, Kate. We will be married o' Sunday.
[Petruchio and Katherine exit
through different doors.]

GREMIO
Was ever match clapped up so suddenly?

BAPTISTA
Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part
And venture madly on a desperate mart.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you.
'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.

BAPTISTA
The gain I seek, is quiet in the match.

GREMIO
No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.
But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter.
Now is the day we long have looked for.
I am your neighbor and was suitor first.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
And I am one that love Bianca more
Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.

GREMIO
Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Graybeard, thy love doth freeze.

GREMIO  But thine doth fry!
Skipper, stand back. 'Tis age that nourisheth.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.

BAPTISTA
Content you, gentlemen. I will compound this strife.
'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca's love.
Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?

GREMIO
First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold,
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuffed my crowns,
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions bossed with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needlework,
Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs
To house or housekeeping. Then, at my farm
I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,
Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,
And all things answerable to this portion.
Myself am struck in years, I must confess,
And if I die tomorrow this is hers,
If whilst I live she will be only mine.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
That "only" came well in. [To Baptista.] Sir, list to
me:
I am my father's heir and only son.
If I may have your daughter to my wife,
I'll leave her houses three or four as good,
Within rich Pisa walls, as any one
Old Signior Gremio has in Padua,
Besides two thousand ducats by the year
Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.--
What, have I pinched you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO
Two thousand ducats by the year of land?
[Aside.] My land amounts not to so much in all.--
That she shall have, besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marcellus' road.
[To Tranio.] What, have I choked you with an argosy?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less
Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses
And twelve tight galleys. These I will assure her,
And twice as much whate'er thou off'rest next.

GREMIO
Nay, I have offered all. I have no more,
And she can have no more than all I have.
[To Baptista.] If you like me, she shall have me and
mine.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Why, then, the maid is mine from all the world,
By your firm promise. Gremio is outvied.

BAPTISTA
I must confess your offer is the best,
And, let your father make her the assurance,
She is your own; else, you must pardon me.
If you should die before him, where's her dower?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
That's but a cavil. He is old, I young.

GREMIO
And may not young men die as well as old?

BAPTISTA
Well, gentlemen, I am thus resolved:
On Sunday next, you know
My daughter Katherine is to be married.
[To Tranio as Lucentio.] Now, on the Sunday
following, shall Bianca
Be bride to you, if you make this assurance.
If not, to Signior Gremio.
And so I take my leave, and thank you both.

GREMIO
Adieu, good neighbor.	[Baptista exits.]
Now I fear thee not.
Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool
To give thee all and in his waning age
Set foot under thy table. Tut, a toy!
An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.
[Gremio exits.]

TRANIO
A vengeance on your crafty withered hide!--
Yet I have faced it with a card of ten.
'Tis in my head to do my master good.
I see no reason but supposed Lucentio
Must get a father, called "supposed Vincentio"--
And that's a wonder. Fathers commonly
Do get their children. But in this case of wooing,
A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.
[He exits.]


ACT 3
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Lucentio as Cambio, Hortensio as Litio, and
Bianca.]


LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
Fiddler, forbear. You grow too forward, sir.
Have you so soon forgot the entertainment
Her sister Katherine welcomed you withal?

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]  But, wrangling pedant, this is
The patroness of heavenly harmony.
Then give me leave to have prerogative,
And when in music we have spent an hour,
Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
Preposterous ass, that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordained.
Was it not to refresh the mind of man
After his studies or his usual pain?
Then give me leave to read philosophy,
And, while I pause, serve in your harmony.

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.

BIANCA
Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong
To strive for that which resteth in my choice.
I am no breeching scholar in the schools.
I'll not be tied to hours, nor 'pointed times,
But learn my lessons as I please myself.
And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down.
[To Hortensio.] Take you your instrument, play you
the whiles;
His lecture will be done ere you have tuned.

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
You'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?

LUCENTIO, [aside]
That will be never. [To Hortensio.] Tune your
instrument.	[Hortensio steps aside to tune his lute.]

BIANCA  Where left we last?

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]  Here, madam:
[Showing her a book.]
Hic ibat Simois, hic est Sigeia tellus,
Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.

BIANCA  Conster them.

LUCENTIO  Hic ibat, as I told you before, Simois, I am
Lucentio, hic est, son unto Vincentio of Pisa,
Sigeia tellus, disguised thus to get your love, Hic
steterat, and that "Lucentio" that comes a-wooing,
Priami, is my man Tranio, regia, bearing my port,
celsa senis, that we might beguile the old pantaloon.

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]  Madam, my instrument's in
tune.

BIANCA  Let's hear. [He plays.] Oh fie, the treble jars!

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]  Spit in the hole, man, and tune
again.	[Hortensio tunes his lute again.]

BIANCA  Now let me see if I can conster it. Hic ibat
Simois, I know you not; hic est Sigeia tellus, I trust
you not; Hic steterat Priami, take heed he hear us
not; regia, presume not; celsa senis, despair not.

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
Madam, 'tis now in tune.	[He plays again.]

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]  All but the bass.

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
The bass is right. 'Tis the base knave that jars.
[Aside.] How fiery and forward our pedant is.
Now for my life the knave doth court my love!
Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet.

BIANCA, [to Lucentio]
In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.

LUCENTIO
Mistrust it not, for sure Aeacides
Was Ajax, called so from his grandfather.

BIANCA
I must believe my master; else, I promise you,
I should be arguing still upon that doubt.
But let it rest.--Now, Litio, to you.
Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.

HORTENSIO, [as Litio, to Lucentio]
You may go walk, and give me leave awhile.
My lessons make no music in three parts.

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait
[Aside.] And watch withal, for, but I be deceived,
Our fine musician groweth amorous.
[He steps aside.]

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
Madam, before you touch the instrument,
To learn the order of my fingering
I must begin with rudiments of art,
To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,
More pleasant, pithy, and effectual
Than hath been taught by any of my trade.
And there it is in writing fairly drawn.

BIANCA
Why, I am past my gamut long ago.

HORTENSIO
Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.
[Giving her a paper.]

BIANCA [reads]
"Gamut I am, the ground of all accord:
A re, to plead Hortensio's passion;
B mi, Bianca, take him for thy lord,
C fa ut, that loves with all affection;
D sol re, one clef, two notes have I;
E la mi, show pity or I die."
Call you this "gamut"? Tut, I like it not.
Old fashions please me best. I am not so nice
To change true rules for odd inventions.

[Enter a Servant.]


SERVANT
Mistress, your father prays you leave your books
And help to dress your sister's chamber up.
You know tomorrow is the wedding day.

BIANCA
Farewell, sweet masters both. I must be gone.

LUCENTIO
Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.
[Bianca, the Servant, and Lucentio exit.]

HORTENSIO
But I have cause to pry into this pedant.
Methinks he looks as though he were in love.
Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble
To cast thy wand'ring eyes on every stale,
Seize thee that list! If once I find thee ranging,
Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing.
[He exits.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio as Lucentio, Katherine,
Bianca, Lucentio as Cambio, and others, Attendants.]


BAPTISTA, [to Tranio]
Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed day
That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,
And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.
What will be said? What mockery will it be,
To want the bridegroom when the priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage?
What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?

KATHERINE
No shame but mine. I must, forsooth, be forced
To give my hand, opposed against my heart,
Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen,
Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior,
And, to be noted for a merry man,
He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite, and proclaim the banns,
Yet never means to wed where he hath wooed.
Now must the world point at poor Katherine
And say "Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,
If it would please him come and marry her."

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word.
Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest.

KATHERINE
Would Katherine had never seen him, though!
[She exits weeping.]

BAPTISTA
Go, girl. I cannot blame thee now to weep,
For such an injury would vex a very saint,
Much more a shrew of thy impatient humor.

[Enter Biondello.]


BIONDELLO  Master, master, news! And such old
news as you never heard of!

BAPTISTA
Is it new and old too? How may that be?

BIONDELLO  Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's
coming?

BAPTISTA  Is he come?

BIONDELLO  Why, no, sir.

BAPTISTA
What then?

BIONDELLO  He is coming.

BAPTISTA  When will he be here?

BIONDELLO
When he stands where I am, and sees you there.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  But say, what to thine old news?

BIONDELLO  Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and
an old jerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned,
a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one
buckled, another laced; an old rusty sword ta'en
out of the town armory, with a broken hilt, and
chapeless; with two broken points; his horse
hipped, with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no
kindred, besides possessed with the glanders and
like to mose in the chine, troubled with the lampass,
infected with the fashions, full of windgalls,
sped with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure
of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn
with the bots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten,
near-legged before, and with a half-checked
bit and a headstall of sheep's leather,
which, being restrained to keep him from stumbling,
hath been often burst, and now repaired with
knots; one girth six times pieced, and a woman's
crupper of velour, which hath two letters for her
name fairly set down in studs, and here and there
pieced with packthread.

BAPTISTA  Who comes with him?

BIONDELLO  Oh, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned
like the horse: with a linen stock on one leg
and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with
a red and blue list; an old hat, and the humor of
forty fancies pricked in 't for a feather. A monster,
a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian
footboy or a gentleman's lackey.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
'Tis some odd humor pricks him to this fashion,
Yet oftentimes he goes but mean-appareled.

BAPTISTA
I am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.

BIONDELLO  Why, sir, he comes not.

BAPTISTA  Didst thou not say he comes?

BIONDELLO  Who? That Petruchio came?

BAPTISTA  Ay, that Petruchio came!

BIONDELLO  No, sir, I say his horse comes with him on
his back.

BAPTISTA  Why, that's all one.

BIONDELLO
	Nay, by Saint Jamy.
	I hold you a penny,
	A horse and a man
	Is more than one,
	And yet not many.

[Enter Petruchio and Grumio.]


PETRUCHIO
Come, where be these gallants? Who's at home?

BAPTISTA  You are welcome, sir.

PETRUCHIO  And yet I come not well.

BAPTISTA  And yet you halt not.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  Not so well appareled as I wish
you were.

PETRUCHIO
Were it better I should rush in thus--
But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?
How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown.
And wherefore gaze this goodly company
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet or unusual prodigy?

BAPTISTA
Why, sir, you know this is your wedding day.
First were we sad, fearing you would not come,
Now sadder that you come so unprovided.
Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,
An eyesore to our solemn festival.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
And tell us what occasion of import
Hath all so long detained you from your wife
And sent you hither so unlike yourself.

PETRUCHIO
Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear.
Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,
Though in some part enforced to digress,
Which at more leisure I will so excuse
As you shall well be satisfied with all.
But where is Kate? I stay too long from her.
The morning wears. 'Tis time we were at church.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
See not your bride in these unreverent robes.
Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.

PETRUCHIO
Not I, believe me. Thus I'll visit her.

BAPTISTA
But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.

PETRUCHIO
Good sooth, even thus. Therefore, ha' done with
words.
To me she's married, not unto my clothes.
Could I repair what she will wear in me,
As I can change these poor accoutrements,
'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.
But what a fool am I to chat with you
When I should bid good morrow to my bride
And seal the title with a lovely kiss!
[Petruchio exits, with Grumio.]

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
He hath some meaning in his mad attire.
We will persuade him, be it possible,
To put on better ere he go to church.

BAPTISTA
I'll after him, and see the event of this.
[All except Tranio and Lucentio exit.]

TRANIO
But, sir, to love concerneth us to add
Her father's liking, which to bring to pass,
As I before imparted to your Worship,
I am to get a man (whate'er he be
It skills not much, we'll fit him to our turn),
And he shall be "Vincentio of Pisa,"
And make assurance here in Padua
Of greater sums than I have promised.
So shall you quietly enjoy your hope
And marry sweet Bianca with consent.

LUCENTIO
Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster
Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,
'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage,
Which, once performed, let all the world say no,
I'll keep mine own despite of all the world.

TRANIO
That by degrees we mean to look into,
And watch our vantage in this business.
We'll overreach the graybeard, Gremio,
The narrow prying father, Minola,
The quaint musician, amorous Litio,
All for my master's sake, Lucentio.

[Enter Gremio.]


TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Signior Gremio, came you from the church?

GREMIO
As willingly as e'er I came from school.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?

GREMIO
A bridegroom, say you? 'Tis a groom indeed,
A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Curster than she? Why, 'tis impossible.

GREMIO
Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.

GREMIO
Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him.
I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest
Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,
"Ay, by gog's wouns!" quoth he, and swore so loud
That, all amazed, the priest let fall the book,
And as he stooped again to take it up,
This mad-brained bridegroom took him such a cuff
That down fell priest and book, and book and priest.
"Now, take them up," quoth he, "if any list."

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
What said the wench when he rose again?

GREMIO
Trembled and shook, for why he stamped and swore
As if the vicar meant to cozen him.
But after many ceremonies done,
He calls for wine. "A health!" quoth he, as if
He had been aboard, carousing to his mates
After a storm; quaffed off the muscatel
And threw the sops all in the sexton's face,
Having no other reason
But that his beard grew thin and hungerly,
And seemed to ask him sops as he was drinking.
This done, he took the bride about the neck
And kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack
That at the parting all the church did echo.
And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame,
And after me I know the rout is coming.
Such a mad marriage never was before!	[Music plays.]
Hark, hark, I hear the minstrels play.

[Enter Petruchio, Katherine, Bianca, Hortensio, Baptista,
Grumio, and Attendants.]


PETRUCHIO
Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains.
I know you think to dine with me today
And have prepared great store of wedding cheer,
But so it is, my haste doth call me hence,
And therefore here I mean to take my leave.

BAPTISTA
Is 't possible you will away tonight?

PETRUCHIO
I must away today, before night come.
Make it no wonder. If you knew my business,
You would entreat me rather go than stay.
And, honest company, I thank you all,
That have beheld me give away myself
To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.
Dine with my father, drink a health to me,
For I must hence, and farewell to you all.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.

PETRUCHIO  It may not be.

GREMIO  Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO  It cannot be.

KATHERINE  Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO
I am content.

KATHERINE  Are you content to stay?

PETRUCHIO
I am content you shall entreat me stay,
But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.

KATHERINE
Now, if you love me, stay.

PETRUCHIO  Grumio, my horse.

GRUMIO  Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the
horses.

KATHERINE  Nay, then,
Do what thou canst, I will not go today,
No, nor tomorrow, not till I please myself.
The door is open, sir. There lies your way.
You may be jogging whiles your boots are green.
For me, I'll not be gone till I please myself.
'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom,
That take it on you at the first so roundly.

PETRUCHIO
O Kate, content thee. Prithee, be not angry.

KATHERINE
I will be angry. What hast thou to do?--
Father, be quiet. He shall stay my leisure.

GREMIO
Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.

KATHERINE
Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.
I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist.

PETRUCHIO
They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.--
Obey the bride, you that attend on her.
Go to the feast, revel and domineer,
Carouse full measure to her maidenhead,
Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves.
But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything.
And here she stands, touch her whoever dare.
I'll bring mine action on the proudest he
That stops my way in Padua.--Grumio,
Draw forth thy weapon. We are beset with thieves.
Rescue thy mistress if thou be a man!--
Fear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch thee,
Kate.
I'll buckler thee against a million.
[Petruchio and Katherine exit, with Grumio.]

BAPTISTA
Nay, let them go. A couple of quiet ones!

GREMIO
Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Of all mad matches never was the like.

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister?

BIANCA
That being mad herself, she's madly mated.

GREMIO
I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.

BAPTISTA
Neighbors and friends, though bride and
bridegroom wants
For to supply the places at the table,
You know there wants no junkets at the feast.
[To Tranio.] Lucentio, you shall supply the
bridegroom's place,
And let Bianca take her sister's room.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Shall sweet Bianca practice how to bride it?

BAPTISTA, [to Tranio]
She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.
[They exit.]


ACT 4
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Grumio.]


GRUMIO  Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters,
and all foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? Was
ever man so 'rayed? Was ever man so weary? I am
sent before to make a fire, and they are coming
after to warm them. Now were not I a little pot and
soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my
tongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my
belly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me. But I
with blowing the fire shall warm myself. For, considering
the weather, a taller man than I will take
cold.--Holla, ho, Curtis!

[Enter Curtis.]


CURTIS  Who is that calls so coldly?

GRUMIO  A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou mayst
slide from my shoulder to my heel with no greater
a run but my head and my neck. A fire, good Curtis!

CURTIS  Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?

GRUMIO  Oh, ay, Curtis, ay, and therefore fire, fire! Cast
on no water.

CURTIS  Is she so hot a shrew as she's reported?

GRUMIO  She was, good Curtis, before this frost. But
thou know'st winter tames man, woman, and
beast, for it hath tamed my old master and my new
mistress and myself, fellow Curtis.

CURTIS  Away, you three-inch fool, I am no beast!

GRUMIO  Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a
foot, and so long am I, at the least. But wilt thou
make a fire? Or shall I complain on thee to our
mistress, whose hand (she being now at hand) thou
shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in
thy hot office?

CURTIS  I prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the
world?

GRUMIO  A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine,
and therefore fire! Do thy duty, and have thy duty,
for my master and mistress are almost frozen to
death.

CURTIS  There's fire ready. And therefore, good Grumio,
the news!

GRUMIO  Why, "Jack boy, ho boy!" and as much news
as wilt thou.

CURTIS  Come, you are so full of cony-catching.

GRUMIO  Why, therefore fire, for I have caught extreme
cold. Where's the cook? Is supper ready, the house
trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the servingmen
in their new fustian, their white stockings,
and every officer his wedding garment on? Be
the Jacks fair within, the Jills fair without, the
carpets laid, and everything in order?

CURTIS  All ready. And therefore, I pray thee, news.

GRUMIO  First, know my horse is tired, my master and
mistress fallen out.

CURTIS  How?

GRUMIO  Out of their saddles into the dirt, and thereby
hangs a tale.

CURTIS  Let's ha' t, good Grumio.

GRUMIO  Lend thine ear.

CURTIS  Here.

GRUMIO  There!	[He slaps Curtis on the ear.]

CURTIS  This 'tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.

GRUMIO  And therefore 'tis called a sensible tale. And
this cuff was but to knock at your ear and beseech
list'ning. Now I begin: Imprimis, we came down a
foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress--

CURTIS  Both of one horse?

GRUMIO  What's that to thee?

CURTIS  Why, a horse.

GRUMIO  Tell thou the tale! But hadst thou not crossed
me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell,
and she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard
in how miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he
left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me
because her horse stumbled, how she waded
through the dirt to pluck him off me, how he swore,
how she prayed that never prayed before, how I
cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was
burst, how I lost my crupper, with many things of
worthy memory which now shall die in oblivion,
and thou return unexperienced to thy grave.

CURTIS  By this reck'ning, he is more shrew than she.

GRUMIO  Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all
shall find when he comes home. But what talk I of
this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Phillip,
Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest. Let their heads
be slickly combed, their blue coats brushed, and
their garters of an indifferent knit. Let them curtsy
with their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair
of my master's horse-tail till they kiss their hands.
Are they all ready?

CURTIS  They are.

GRUMIO  Call them forth.

CURTIS, [calling out]  Do you hear, ho? You must meet
my master to countenance my mistress.

GRUMIO  Why, she hath a face of her own.

CURTIS  Who knows not that?

GRUMIO  Thou, it seems, that calls for company to
countenance her.

CURTIS  I call them forth to credit her.

GRUMIO  Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.

[Enter four or five Servingmen.]


NATHANIEL  Welcome home, Grumio.

PHILLIP  How now, Grumio?

JOSEPH  What, Grumio!

NICHOLAS  Fellow Grumio!

NATHANIEL  How now, old lad?

GRUMIO  Welcome, you!--How now, you?--What,
you!--Fellow, you!--And thus much for greeting.
Now, my spruce companions, is all ready and all
things neat?

NATHANIEL  All things is ready. How near is our
master?

GRUMIO  E'en at hand, alighted by this. And therefore
be not--Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.

[Enter Petruchio and Katherine.]


PETRUCHIO
Where be these knaves? What, no man at door
To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse?
Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Phillip?

ALL THE SERVANTS  Here! Here, sir, here, sir!

PETRUCHIO
"Here, sir! Here, sir! Here, sir! Here, sir!"
You loggerheaded and unpolished grooms.
What? No attendance? No regard? No duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?

GRUMIO
Here, sir, as foolish as I was before.

PETRUCHIO
You peasant swain, you whoreson malt-horse
drudge!
Did I not bid thee meet me in the park
And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?

GRUMIO
Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,
And Gabriel's pumps were all unpinked i' th' heel.
There was no link to color Peter's hat,
And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing.
There were none fine but Adam, Rafe, and Gregory.
The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly.
Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.

PETRUCHIO
Go, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in!
[The Servants exit.]
[Sings.]	Where is the life that late I led?
	Where are those--
Sit down, Kate, and welcome.
[They sit at a table.]
Soud, soud, soud, soud!

[Enter Servants with supper.]

Why, when, I say?--Nay, good sweet Kate, be
merry.--
Off with my boots, you rogues, you villains! When?
[Sings.]	It was the friar of orders gray,
	As he forth walked on his way--

[Servant begins to remove Petruchio's boots.]

Out, you rogue! You pluck my foot awry.
Take that!	[He hits the Servant.]
And mend the plucking of the other.--
Be merry, Kate.--Some water here! What ho!

[Enter one with water.]

Where's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence
And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither.
[A Servant exits.]
One, Kate, that you must kiss and be acquainted
with.--
Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?--
Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.--
You whoreson villain, will you let it fall?
[He hits the Servant.]

KATHERINE
Patience, I pray you, 'twas a fault unwilling.

PETRUCHIO
A whoreson beetle-headed flap-eared knave!--
Come, Kate, sit down. I know you have a stomach.
Will you give thanks, sweet Kate, or else shall I?--
What's this? Mutton?

FIRST SERVANT  Ay.

PETRUCHIO  Who brought it?

PETER  I.

PETRUCHIO  'Tis burnt, and so is all the meat.
What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook?
How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser
And serve it thus to me that love it not?
There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all!
[He throws the food and dishes at them.]
You heedless joltheads and unmannered slaves!
What, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.
[The Servants exit.]

KATHERINE
I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet.
The meat was well, if you were so contented.

PETRUCHIO
I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,
And I expressly am forbid to touch it,
For it engenders choler, planteth anger,
And better 'twere that both of us did fast
(Since of ourselves, ourselves are choleric)
Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.
Be patient. Tomorrow 't shall be mended,
And for this night we'll fast for company.
Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.
[They exit.]

[Enter Servants severally.]


NATHANIEL  Peter, didst ever see the like?

PETER  He kills her in her own humor.

[Enter Curtis.]


GRUMIO  Where is he?

CURTIS  In her chamber,
Making a sermon of continency to her,
And rails and swears and rates, that she (poor soul)
Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,
And sits as one new-risen from a dream.
Away, away, for he is coming hither!
[The Servants exit.]

[Enter Petruchio.]


PETRUCHIO
Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And 'tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And, till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged,
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come and know her keeper's call.
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient.
She ate no meat today, nor none shall eat.
Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not.
As with the meat, some undeserved fault
I'll find about the making of the bed,
And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets.
Ay, and amid this hurly I intend
That all is done in reverend care of her.
And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night,
And, if she chance to nod, I'll rail and brawl,
And with the clamor keep her still awake.
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness.
And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak; 'tis charity to shew.
[He exits.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Tranio as Lucentio and Hortensio as Litio.]


TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Is 't possible, friend Litio, that mistress Bianca
Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?
I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said,
Stand by, and mark the manner of his teaching.
[They stand aside.]

[Enter Bianca and Lucentio as Cambio.]


LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
Now mistress, profit you in what you read?

BIANCA
What, master, read you? First resolve me that.

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
I read that I profess, The Art to Love.

BIANCA
And may you prove, sir, master of your art.

LUCENTIO, [as Cambio]
While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.
[They move aside and kiss and talk.]

HORTENSIO, [as Litio]
Quick proceeders, marry! Now tell me, I pray,
You that durst swear that your mistress Bianca
Loved none in the world so well as Lucentio.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
O despiteful love, unconstant womankind!
I tell thee, Litio, this is wonderful!

HORTENSIO
Mistake no more. I am not Litio,
Nor a musician as I seem to be,
But one that scorn to live in this disguise
For such a one as leaves a gentleman
And makes a god of such a cullion.
Know, sir, that I am called Hortensio.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Signior Hortensio, I have often heard
Of your entire affection to Bianca,
And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,
I will with you, if you be so contented,
Forswear Bianca and her love forever.

HORTENSIO
See how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,
Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow
Never to woo her more, but do forswear her
As one unworthy all the former favors
That I have fondly flattered her withal.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
And here I take the like unfeigned oath,
Never to marry with her, though she would entreat.
Fie on her, see how beastly she doth court him!

HORTENSIO
Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!
For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,
I will be married to a wealthy widow
Ere three days pass, which hath as long loved me
As I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.
And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love, and so I take my leave,
In resolution as I swore before.
[Hortensio exits;]
[Bianca and Lucentio come forward.]

TRANIO
Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace
As 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!
Nay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,
And have forsworn you with Hortensio.

BIANCA
Tranio, you jest. But have you both forsworn me?

TRANIO
Mistress, we have.

LUCENTIO  Then we are rid of Litio.

TRANIO
I' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now
That shall be wooed and wedded in a day.

BIANCA  God give him joy.

TRANIO
Ay, and he'll tame her.

BIANCA  He says so, Tranio?

TRANIO
Faith, he is gone unto the taming school.

BIANCA
The taming school? What, is there such a place?

TRANIO
Ay, mistress, and Petruchio is the master,
That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long
To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.

[Enter Biondello.]


BIONDELLO
O master, master, I have watched so long
That I am dog-weary, but at last I spied
An ancient angel coming down the hill
Will serve the turn.

TRANIO  What is he, Biondello?

BIONDELLO
Master, a marcantant, or a pedant,
I know not what, but formal in apparel,
In gait and countenance surely like a father.

LUCENTIO  And what of him, Tranio?

TRANIO
If he be credulous, and trust my tale,
I'll make him glad to seem Vincentio
And give assurance to Baptista Minola
As if he were the right Vincentio.
Take in your love, and then let me alone.
[Lucentio and Bianca exit.]

[Enter a Merchant.]


MERCHANT
God save you, sir.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  And you, sir. You are welcome.
Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?

MERCHANT
Sir, at the farthest for a week or two,
But then up farther, and as far as Rome,
And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
What countryman, I pray?

MERCHANT  Of Mantua.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Of Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid!
And come to Padua, careless of your life?

MERCHANT
My life, sir? How, I pray? For that goes hard.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
'Tis death for anyone in Mantua
To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?
Your ships are stayed at Venice, and the Duke,
For private quarrel 'twixt your duke and him,
Hath published and proclaimed it openly.
'Tis marvel, but that you are but newly come,
You might have heard it else proclaimed about.

MERCHANT
Alas, sir, it is worse for me than so,
For I have bills for money by exchange
From Florence, and must here deliver them.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Well, sir, to do you courtesy,
This will I do, and this I will advise you.
First tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?

MERCHANT
Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,
Pisa renowned for grave citizens.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Among them know you one Vincentio?

MERCHANT
I know him not, but I have heard of him:
A merchant of incomparable wealth.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
He is my father, sir, and sooth to say,
In count'nance somewhat doth resemble you.

BIONDELLO, [aside]  As much as an apple doth an
oyster, and all one.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
To save your life in this extremity,
This favor will I do you for his sake
(And think it not the worst of all your fortunes
That you are like to Sir Vincentio):
His name and credit shall you undertake,
And in my house you shall be friendly lodged.
Look that you take upon you as you should.
You understand me, sir. So shall you stay
Till you have done your business in the city.
If this be court'sy, sir, accept of it.

MERCHANT
O sir, I do, and will repute you ever
The patron of my life and liberty.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Then go with me, to make the matter good.
This, by the way, I let you understand:
My father is here looked for every day
To pass assurance of a dower in marriage
'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here.
In all these circumstances I'll instruct you.
Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.
[They exit.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter Katherine and Grumio.]


GRUMIO
No, no, forsooth, I dare not for my life.

KATHERINE
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.
What, did he marry me to famish me?
Beggars that come unto my father's door
Upon entreaty have a present alms.
If not, elsewhere they meet with charity.
But I, who never knew how to entreat,
Nor never needed that I should entreat,
Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,
With oaths kept waking and with brawling fed.
And that which spites me more than all these wants,
He does it under name of perfect love,
As who should say, if I should sleep or eat
'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.
I prithee, go, and get me some repast,
I care not what, so it be wholesome food.

GRUMIO  What say you to a neat's foot?

KATHERINE
'Tis passing good. I prithee let me have it.

GRUMIO
I fear it is too choleric a meat.
How say you to a fat tripe finely broiled?

KATHERINE
I like it well. Good Grumio, fetch it me.

GRUMIO
I cannot tell. I fear 'tis choleric.
What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

KATHERINE
A dish that I do love to feed upon.

GRUMIO
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.

KATHERINE
Why then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.

GRUMIO
Nay then, I will not. You shall have the mustard
Or else you get no beef of Grumio.

KATHERINE
Then both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.

GRUMIO
Why then, the mustard without the beef.

KATHERINE
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,
[She beats him.]
That feed'st me with the very name of meat.
Sorrow on thee, and all the pack of you
That triumph thus upon my misery.
Go, get thee gone, I say.

[Enter Petruchio and Hortensio with meat.]


PETRUCHIO
How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?

HORTENSIO
Mistress, what cheer?

KATHERINE  Faith, as cold as can be.

PETRUCHIO
Pluck up thy spirits. Look cheerfully upon me.
Here, love, thou seest how diligent I am,
To dress thy meat myself and bring it thee.
I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.
What, not a word? Nay then, thou lov'st it not,
And all my pains is sorted to no proof.
Here, take away this dish.

KATHERINE  I pray you, let it stand.

PETRUCHIO
The poorest service is repaid with thanks,
And so shall mine before you touch the meat.

KATHERINE  I thank you, sir.

HORTENSIO
Signior Petruchio, fie, you are to blame.
Come, Mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.

PETRUCHIO, [aside to Hortensio]
Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me.--
Much good do it unto thy gentle heart.
Kate, eat apace.
[Katherine and Hortensio prepare to eat.]
And now, my honey love,
Will we return unto thy father's house
And revel it as bravely as the best,
With silken coats and caps and golden rings,
With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things,
With scarves and fans and double change of brav'ry,
With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knav'ry.
What, hast thou dined? The tailor stays thy leisure
To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.

[Enter Tailor.]

Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments.
Lay forth the gown.

[Enter Haberdasher.]

What news with you, sir?

HABERDASHER
Here is the cap your Worship did bespeak.

PETRUCHIO
Why, this was molded on a porringer!
A velvet dish! Fie, fie, 'tis lewd and filthy.
Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap.
Away with it! Come, let me have a bigger.

KATHERINE
I'll have no bigger. This doth fit the time,
And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.

PETRUCHIO
When you are gentle, you shall have one too,
And not till then.

HORTENSIO, [aside]  That will not be in haste.

KATHERINE
Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak,
And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.
Your betters have endured me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break,
And, rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

PETRUCHIO
Why, thou sayst true. It is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie.
I love thee well in that thou lik'st it not.

KATHERINE
Love me, or love me not, I like the cap,
And it I will have, or I will have none.
[Exit Haberdasher.]

PETRUCHIO
Thy gown? Why, ay. Come, tailor, let us see 't.
O mercy God, what masking-stuff is here?
What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.
What, up and down carved like an apple tart?
Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber's shop.
Why, what a devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?

HORTENSIO, [aside]
I see she's like to have neither cap nor gown.

TAILOR
You bid me make it orderly and well,
According to the fashion and the time.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, and did. But if you be remembered,
I did not bid you mar it to the time.
Go, hop me over every kennel home,
For you shall hop without my custom, sir.
I'll none of it. Hence, make your best of it.

KATHERINE
I never saw a better-fashioned gown,
More quaint, more pleasing, nor more
commendable.
Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.

PETRUCHIO
Why, true, he means to make a puppet of thee.

TAILOR
She says your Worship means to make a puppet of
her.

PETRUCHIO
O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread,
thou thimble,
Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket, thou!
Braved in mine own house with a skein of thread?
Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant,
Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st.
I tell thee, I, that thou hast marred her gown.

TAILOR
Your Worship is deceived. The gown is made
Just as my master had direction.
Grumio gave order how it should be done.

GRUMIO  I gave him no order. I gave him the stuff.

TAILOR
But how did you desire it should be made?

GRUMIO  Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

TAILOR
But did you not request to have it cut?

GRUMIO  Thou hast faced many things.

TAILOR  I have.

GRUMIO  Face not me. Thou hast braved many men;
brave not me. I will neither be faced nor braved. I
say unto thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown,
but I did not bid him cut it to pieces. Ergo, thou
liest.

TAILOR  Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.
[He shows a paper.]

PETRUCHIO  Read it.

GRUMIO  The note lies in 's throat, if he say I said so.

TAILOR [reads]  "Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown--"

GRUMIO  Master, if ever I said "loose-bodied gown,"
sew me in the skirts of it and beat me to death with
a bottom of brown thread. I said "a gown."

PETRUCHIO  Proceed.

TAILOR [reads]  "With a small-compassed cape--"

GRUMIO  I confess the cape.

TAILOR [reads]  "With a trunk sleeve--"

GRUMIO  I confess two sleeves.

TAILOR [reads]  "The sleeves curiously cut."

PETRUCHIO  Ay, there's the villainy.

GRUMIO  Error i' th' bill, sir, error i' th' bill! I commanded
the sleeves should be cut out and sewed
up again, and that I'll prove upon thee, though thy
little finger be armed in a thimble.

TAILOR  This is true that I say. An I had thee in place
where, thou shouldst know it.

GRUMIO  I am for thee straight. Take thou the bill, give
me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.

HORTENSIO  God-a-mercy, Grumio, then he shall have
no odds.

PETRUCHIO
Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.

GRUMIO  You are i' th' right, sir, 'tis for my mistress.

PETRUCHIO
Go, take it up unto thy master's use.

GRUMIO  Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress'
gown for thy master's use!

PETRUCHIO  Why, sir, what's your conceit in that?

GRUMIO  O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think
for. Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use!
O, fie, fie, fie!

PETRUCHIO, [aside to Hortensio]
Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.
[To Tailor.] Go, take it hence. Begone, and say no
more.

HORTENSIO, [aside to Tailor]
Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow.
Take no unkindness of his hasty words.
Away, I say. Commend me to thy master.
[Tailor exits.]

PETRUCHIO
Well, come, my Kate, we will unto your father's,
Even in these honest mean habiliments.
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor,
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich,
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honor peereth in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
O no, good Kate. Neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.
If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me,
And therefore frolic! We will hence forthwith
To feast and sport us at thy father's house.
[To Grumio.] Go, call my men, and let us straight to
him,
And bring our horses unto Long-lane end.
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.
Let's see, I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,
And well we may come there by dinner time.

KATHERINE
I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two,
And 'twill be supper time ere you come there.

PETRUCHIO
It shall be seven ere I go to horse.
Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it.--Sirs, let 't alone.
I will not go today, and, ere I do,
It shall be what o'clock I say it is.

HORTENSIO, [aside]
Why, so, this gallant will command the sun!
[They exit.]

Scene 4
=======
[Enter Tranio as Lucentio, and the Merchant, booted,
and dressed like Vincentio.]


TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Sir, this is the house. Please it you that I call?

MERCHANT
Ay, what else? And but I be deceived,
Signior Baptista may remember me,
Near twenty years ago, in Genoa,
Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
'Tis well. And hold your own in any case
With such austerity as 'longeth to a father.

MERCHANT
I warrant you.

[Enter Biondello.]

But, sir, here comes your boy.
'Twere good he were schooled.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Fear you not him.--Sirrah Biondello,
Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.
Imagine 'twere the right Vincentio.

BIONDELLO  Tut, fear not me.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?

BIONDELLO
I told him that your father was at Venice,
And that you looked for him this day in Padua.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Thou 'rt a tall fellow. Hold thee that to drink.
[He gives him money.]

[Enter Baptista and Lucentio as Cambio.]

Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.
[Merchant stands bareheaded.]

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Signior Baptista, you are happily met.--
Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of.
I pray you stand good father to me now.
Give me Bianca for my patrimony.

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Soft, son.--
Sir, by your leave, having come to Padua
To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio
Made me acquainted with a weighty cause
Of love between your daughter and himself.
And, for the good report I hear of you,
And for the love he beareth to your daughter
And she to him, to stay him not too long,
I am content, in a good father's care,
To have him matched. And if you please to like
No worse than I, upon some agreement
Me shall you find ready and willing
With one consent to have her so bestowed,
For curious I cannot be with you,
Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

BAPTISTA
Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.
Your plainness and your shortness please me well.
Right true it is your son Lucentio here
Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,
Or both dissemble deeply their affections.
And therefore, if you say no more than this,
That like a father you will deal with him
And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,
The match is made, and all is done.
Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best
We be affied and such assurance ta'en
As shall with either part's agreement stand?

BAPTISTA
Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know
Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants.
Besides, old Gremio is heark'ning still,
And happily we might be interrupted.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Then at my lodging, an it like you.
There doth my father lie, and there this night
We'll pass the business privately and well.
Send for your daughter by your servant here.
[He indicates Lucentio, and winks at him.]
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.
The worst is this: that at so slender warning
You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.

BAPTISTA
It likes me well.--Cambio, hie you home,
And bid Bianca make her ready straight.
And, if you will, tell what hath happened:
Lucentio's father is arrived in Padua,
And how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.
[Lucentio exits.]

BIONDELLO
I pray the gods she may, with all my heart.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]
Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.--
Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?
Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer.
Come, sir, we will better it in Pisa.

BAPTISTA  I follow you.
[All but Biondello exit.]

[Enter Lucentio.]


BIONDELLO  Cambio.

LUCENTIO  What sayst thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO  You saw my master wink and laugh upon
you?

LUCENTIO  Biondello, what of that?

BIONDELLO  Faith, nothing; but 'has left me here behind
to expound the meaning or moral of his signs
and tokens.

LUCENTIO  I pray thee, moralize them.

BIONDELLO  Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with
the deceiving father of a deceitful son.

LUCENTIO  And what of him?

BIONDELLO  His daughter is to be brought by you to the
supper.

LUCENTIO  And then?

BIONDELLO  The old priest at Saint Luke's Church is at
your command at all hours.

LUCENTIO  And what of all this?

BIONDELLO  I cannot tell, except they are busied
about a counterfeit assurance. Take you assurance
of her cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum. To th'
church take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient
honest witnesses.
If this be not that you look for, I have no more to
say,
But bid Bianca farewell forever and a day.

LUCENTIO  Hear'st thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO  I cannot tarry. I knew a wench married in
an afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley
to stuff a rabbit, and so may you, sir. And so adieu,
sir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint
Luke's to bid the priest be ready to come against
you come with your appendix.	[He exits.]

LUCENTIO
I may, and will, if she be so contented.
She will be pleased. Then wherefore should I
doubt?
Hap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her.
It shall go hard if "Cambio" go without her.
[He exits.]

Scene 5
=======
[Enter Petruchio, Katherine, Hortensio, and Servants.]


PETRUCHIO
Come on, i' God's name, once more toward our
father's.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHERINE
The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

KATHERINE
I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or e'er I journey to your father's house.
[To Servants.] Go on, and fetch our horses back
again.--
Evermore crossed and crossed, nothing but crossed!

HORTENSIO, [to Katherine]
Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHERINE
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please.
And if you please to call it a rush candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO  I say it is the moon.

KATHERINE  I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie. It is the blessed sun.

KATHERINE
Then God be blest, it is the blessed sun.
But sun it is not, when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is,
And so it shall be so for Katherine.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.

PETRUCHIO
Well, forward, forward. Thus the bowl should run,
And not unluckily against the bias.
But soft! Company is coming here.

[Enter Vincentio.]

[To Vincentio.] Good morrow, gentle mistress, where
away?--
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly, too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Such war of white and red within her cheeks!
What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty
As those two eyes become that heavenly face?--
Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.--
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.

HORTENSIO, [aside]
He will make the man mad, to make the woman of
him.

KATHERINE
Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child!
Happier the man whom favorable stars
Allots thee for his lovely bedfellow.

PETRUCHIO
Why, how now, Kate? I hope thou art not mad!
This is a man--old, wrinkled, faded, withered--
And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.

KATHERINE
Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green.
Now I perceive thou art a reverend father.
Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.

PETRUCHIO
Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known
Which way thou travelest. If along with us,
We shall be joyful of thy company.

VINCENTIO
Fair sir, and you, my merry mistress,
That with your strange encounter much amazed me,
My name is called Vincentio, my dwelling Pisa,
And bound I am to Padua, there to visit
A son of mine which long I have not seen.

PETRUCHIO
What is his name?

VINCENTIO  Lucentio, gentle sir.

PETRUCHIO
Happily met, the happier for thy son.
And now by law as well as reverend age,
I may entitle thee my loving father.
The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,
Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,
Nor be not grieved. She is of good esteem,
Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;
Beside, so qualified as may beseem
The spouse of any noble gentleman.
Let me embrace with old Vincentio,
And wander we to see thy honest son,
Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.

VINCENTIO
But is this true, or is it else your pleasure,
Like pleasant travelers, to break a jest
Upon the company you overtake?

HORTENSIO
I do assure thee, father, so it is.

PETRUCHIO
Come, go along and see the truth hereof,
For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.
[All but Hortensio exit.]

HORTENSIO
Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart!
Have to my widow, and if she be froward,
Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.
[He exits.]


ACT 5
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Biondello, Lucentio as himself, and Bianca.
Gremio is out before and stands to the side.]


BIONDELLO  Softly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is
ready.

LUCENTIO  I fly, Biondello. But they may chance to
need thee at home. Therefore leave us.
[Lucentio exits with Bianca.]

BIONDELLO  Nay, faith, I'll see the church a' your back,
and then come back to my master's as soon as I
can.	[He exits.]

GREMIO  I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.

[Enter Petruchio, Katherine, Vincentio, Grumio, with
Attendants.]


PETRUCHIO
Sir, here's the door. This is Lucentio's house.
My father's bears more toward the marketplace.
Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.

VINCENTIO
You shall not choose but drink before you go.
I think I shall command your welcome here,
And by all likelihood some cheer is toward.
[He knocks.]

GREMIO, [coming forward]
They're busy within. You were best knock louder.
[Merchant looks out of the window.]

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  What's he that knocks as
he would beat down the gate?

VINCENTIO  Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  He's within, sir, but not to
be spoken withal.

VINCENTIO  What if a man bring him a hundred pound
or two to make merry withal?

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Keep your hundred
pounds to yourself. He shall need none so long as I
live.

PETRUCHIO, [to Vincentio]  Nay, I told you your son was
well beloved in Padua.--Do you hear, sir? To leave
frivolous circumstances, I pray you tell Signior
Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa and is
here at the door to speak with him.

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Thou liest. His father is
come from Padua and here looking out at the
window.

VINCENTIO  Art thou his father?

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Ay, sir, so his mother says,
if I may believe her.

PETRUCHIO, [to Vincentio]  Why, how now, gentleman!
Why, this is flat knavery, to take upon you another
man's name.

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Lay hands on the villain. I
believe he means to cosen somebody in this city
under my countenance.

[Enter Biondello.]


BIONDELLO, [aside]  I have seen them in the church
together. God send 'em good shipping! But who is
here? Mine old master Vincentio! Now we are
undone and brought to nothing.

VINCENTIO, [to Biondello]  Come hither, crack-hemp.

BIONDELLO  I hope I may choose, sir.

VINCENTIO  Come hither, you rogue! What, have you
forgot me?

BIONDELLO  Forgot you? No, sir. I could not forget you,
for I never saw you before in all my life.

VINCENTIO  What, you notorious villain, didst thou
never see thy master's father, Vincentio?

BIONDELLO  What, my old worshipful old master? Yes,
marry, sir. See where he looks out of the window.

VINCENTIO  Is 't so indeed?	[He beats Biondello.]

BIONDELLO  Help, help, help! Here's a madman will
murder me.	[Biondello exits.]

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Help, son! Help, Signior
Baptista!	[He exits from window.]

PETRUCHIO  Prithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the
end of this controversy.	[They move aside.]

[Enter Merchant with Servants, and Baptista and
Tranio disguised as Lucentio.]


TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  Sir, what are you that offer to
beat my servant?

VINCENTIO  What am I, sir? Nay, what are you, sir! O
immortal gods! O fine villain! A silken doublet, a
velvet hose, a scarlet cloak, and a copatain hat! O, I
am undone, I am undone! While I play the good
husband at home, my son and my servant spend all
at the university.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  How now, what's the matter?

BAPTISTA  What, is the man lunatic?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  Sir, you seem a sober ancient
gentleman by your habit, but your words show you
a madman. Why, sir, what 'cerns it you if I wear
pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able
to maintain it.

VINCENTIO  Thy father! O villain, he is a sailmaker in
Bergamo.

BAPTISTA  You mistake, sir, you mistake, sir! Pray, what
do you think is his name?

VINCENTIO  His name? As if I knew not his name! I have
brought him up ever since he was three years old,
and his name is Tranio.

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Away, away, mad ass! His
name is Lucentio and he is mine only son, and heir
to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.

VINCENTIO  Lucentio? O, he hath murdered his master!
Lay hold on him, I charge you in the Duke's name.
O, my son, my son! Tell me, thou villain, where is
my son Lucentio?

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  Call forth an officer.

[Enter an Officer.]

Carry this mad knave to the jail.--Father Baptista, I
charge you see that he be forthcoming.

VINCENTIO  Carry me to the jail?

GREMIO  Stay, officer. He shall not go to prison.

BAPTISTA  Talk not, Signior Gremio. I say he shall go to
prison.

GREMIO  Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched
in this business. I dare swear this is the
right Vincentio.

MERCHANT, [as Vincentio]  Swear, if thou dar'st.

GREMIO  Nay, I dare not swear it.

TRANIO, [as Lucentio]  Then thou wert best say that I
am not Lucentio.

GREMIO  Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.

BAPTISTA  Away with the dotard, to the jail with him.

VINCENTIO  Thus strangers may be haled and abused.--
O monstrous villain!

[Enter Biondello, Lucentio and Bianca.]


BIONDELLO  O, we are spoiled, and yonder he is! Deny
him, forswear him, or else we are all undone.
[Biondello, Tranio, and Merchant
exit as fast as may be.]

LUCENTIO
Pardon, sweet father.	[Lucentio and Bianca kneel.]

VINCENTIO  Lives my sweet son?

BIANCA
Pardon, dear father.

BAPTISTA  How hast thou offended?
Where is Lucentio?

LUCENTIO  Here's Lucentio,
Right son to the right Vincentio,
That have by marriage made thy daughter mine
While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne.

GREMIO
Here's packing, with a witness, to deceive us all!

VINCENTIO
Where is that damned villain, Tranio,
That faced and braved me in this matter so?

BAPTISTA
Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?

BIANCA
Cambio is changed into Lucentio.

LUCENTIO
Love wrought these miracles. Bianca's love
Made me exchange my state with Tranio,
While he did bear my countenance in the town,
And happily I have arrived at the last
Unto the wished haven of my bliss.
What Tranio did, myself enforced him to.
Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.

VINCENTIO  I'll slit the villain's nose that would have
sent me to the jail!

BAPTISTA  But do you hear, sir, have you married my
daughter without asking my goodwill?

VINCENTIO  Fear not, Baptista, we will content you. Go
to! But I will in to be revenged for this villainy.
[He exits.]

BAPTISTA  And I to sound the depth of this knavery.
[He exits.]

LUCENTIO  Look not pale, Bianca. Thy father will not
frown.	[They exit.]

GREMIO
My cake is dough, but I'll in among the rest,
Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.
[He exits.]

KATHERINE  Husband, let's follow to see the end of
this ado.

PETRUCHIO  First kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATHERINE  What, in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIO  What, art thou ashamed of me?

KATHERINE  No, sir, God forbid, but ashamed to kiss.

PETRUCHIO
Why, then, let's home again. [To Grumio.] Come,
sirrah, let's away.

KATHERINE
Nay, I will give thee a kiss.	[She kisses him.]
Now pray thee, love, stay.

PETRUCHIO
Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate.
Better once than never, for never too late.
[They exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Baptista, Vincentio, Gremio, the Merchant,
Lucentio, and Bianca; Hortensio and the Widow,
Petruchio and Katherine; Tranio, Biondello, and
Grumio, with Servingmen bringing in a banquet.]


LUCENTIO
At last, though long, our jarring notes agree,
And time it is when raging war is done
To smile at 'scapes and perils overblown.
My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,
While I with selfsame kindness welcome thine.
Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,
And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
Feast with the best, and welcome to my house.
My banquet is to close our stomachs up
After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down,
For now we sit to chat as well as eat.	[They sit.]

PETRUCHIO
Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!

BAPTISTA
Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

PETRUCHIO
Padua affords nothing but what is kind.

HORTENSIO
For both our sakes I would that word were true.

PETRUCHIO
Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow!

WIDOW
Then never trust me if I be afeard.

PETRUCHIO
You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:
I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.

WIDOW
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

PETRUCHIO
Roundly replied.

KATHERINE  Mistress, how mean you that?

WIDOW  Thus I conceive by him.

PETRUCHIO
Conceives by me? How likes Hortensio that?

HORTENSIO
My widow says, thus she conceives her tale.

PETRUCHIO
Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.

KATHERINE
"He that is giddy thinks the world turns round"--
I pray you tell me what you meant by that.

WIDOW
Your husband being troubled with a shrew
Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe.
And now you know my meaning.

KATHERINE
A very mean meaning.

WIDOW  Right, I mean you.

KATHERINE
And I am mean indeed, respecting you.

PETRUCHIO  To her, Kate!

HORTENSIO  To her, widow!

PETRUCHIO
A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.

HORTENSIO  That's my office.

PETRUCHIO
Spoke like an officer! Ha' to thee, lad.
[He drinks to Hortensio.]

BAPTISTA
How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

GREMIO
Believe me, sir, they butt together well.

BIANCA
Head and butt! An hasty-witted body
Would say your head and butt were head and horn.

VINCENTIO
Ay, mistress bride, hath that awakened you?

BIANCA
Ay, but not frighted me. Therefore I'll sleep again.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, that you shall not. Since you have begun,
Have at you for a bitter jest or two.

BIANCA
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,
And then pursue me as you draw your bow.--
You are welcome all.	[Bianca, Katherine, and the Widow exit.]

PETRUCHIO
She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio,
This bird you aimed at, though you hit her not.--
Therefore a health to all that shot and missed.

TRANIO
O, sir, Lucentio slipped me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself and catches for his master.

PETRUCHIO
A good swift simile, but something currish.

TRANIO
'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself.
'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTA
O, O, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.

LUCENTIO
I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.

HORTENSIO
Confess, confess! Hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCHIO
He has a little galled me, I confess.
And as the jest did glance away from me,
'Tis ten to one it maimed you two outright.

BAPTISTA
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

PETRUCHIO
Well, I say no. And therefore, for assurance,
Let's each one send unto his wife,
And he whose wife is most obedient
To come at first when he doth send for her
Shall win the wager which we will propose.

HORTENSIO
Content, what's the wager?

LUCENTIO  Twenty crowns.

PETRUCHIO  Twenty crowns?
I'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIO
A hundred, then.

HORTENSIO  Content.

PETRUCHIO  A match! 'Tis done.

HORTENSIO  Who shall begin?

LUCENTIO  That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLO  I go.	[He exits.]

BAPTISTA
Son, I'll be your half Bianca comes.

LUCENTIO
I'll have no halves. I'll bear it all myself.
[Enter Biondello.]

How now, what news?

BIONDELLO  Sir, my mistress sends you
word
That she is busy, and she cannot come.

PETRUCHIO
How? "She's busy, and she cannot come"?
Is that an answer?

GREMIO  Ay, and a kind one, too.
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

PETRUCHIO  I hope better.

HORTENSIO
Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.	[Biondello exits.]

PETRUCHIO  O ho, entreat her!
Nay, then, she must needs come.

HORTENSIO  I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.

[Enter Biondello.]

Now, where's my wife?

BIONDELLO
She says you have some goodly jest in hand.
She will not come. She bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIO  Worse and worse. She will not come!
O vile, intolerable, not to be endured!--
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress,
Say I command her come to me.	[Grumio exits.]

HORTENSIO
I know her answer.

PETRUCHIO  What?

HORTENSIO  She will not.

PETRUCHIO
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

[Enter Katherine.]


BAPTISTA
Now by my holidam, here comes Katherina!

KATHERINE
What is your will, sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIO
Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?

KATHERINE
They sit conferring by the parlor fire.

PETRUCHIO
Go fetch them hither. If they deny to come,
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.
[Katherine exits.]

LUCENTIO
Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIO
And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy,
And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.

BAPTISTA
Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won, and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns,
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is changed as she had never been.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, I will win my wager better yet,
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.

[Enter Katherine, Bianca, and Widow.]

See where she comes, and brings your froward
wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.--
Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not.
Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.
[She obeys.]

WIDOW
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh
Till I be brought to such a silly pass.

BIANCA
Fie, what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO
I would your duty were as foolish too.
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me a hundred crowns since suppertime.

BIANCA
The more fool you for laying on my duty.

PETRUCHIO
Katherine, I charge thee tell these headstrong
women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

WIDOW
Come, come, you're mocking. We will have no
telling.

PETRUCHIO
Come on, I say, and first begin with her.

WIDOW  She shall not.

PETRUCHIO
I say she shall.--And first begin with her.

KATHERINE
Fie, fie! Unknit that threat'ning unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty,
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labor both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience--
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot;
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

PETRUCHIO
Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.
[They kiss.]

LUCENTIO
Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha 't.

VINCENTIO
'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

LUCENTIO
But a harsh hearing when women are froward.

PETRUCHIO  Come, Kate, we'll to bed.
We three are married, but you two are sped.
[To Lucentio.] 'Twas I won the wager, though you
hit the white,
And being a winner, God give you good night.
[Petruchio and Katherine exit.]

HORTENSIO
Now, go thy ways, thou hast tamed a curst shrow.

LUCENTIO
'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.
[They exit.]