The Taming Of The Shrew

1 Enter Baptista, Vincentio, Gremio, the Pedant, Lucentio, Bianca,
2 Petruchio, Katherina, Hortensio and Widow. Tranio, Biondello and Grumio
3 and Others, attending.
4 LUCENTIO.
5 At last, though long, our jarring notes agree:
6 And time it is when raging war is done,
7 To smile at ’scapes and perils overblown.
8 My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,
9 While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.
10 Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,
11 And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
12 Feast with the best, and welcome to my house:
13 My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
14 After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;
15 For now we sit to chat as well as eat.
16 [_They sit at table._]
17 PETRUCHIO.
18 Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!
19 BAPTISTA.
20 Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.
21 PETRUCHIO.
22 Padua affords nothing but what is kind.
23 HORTENSIO.
24 For both our sakes I would that word were true.
25 PETRUCHIO.
26 Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.
27 WIDOW.
28 Then never trust me if I be afeard.
29 PETRUCHIO.
30 You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:
31 I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.
32 WIDOW.
33 He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
34 PETRUCHIO.
35 Roundly replied.
36 KATHERINA.
37 Mistress, how mean you that?
38 WIDOW.
39 Thus I conceive by him.
40 PETRUCHIO.
41 Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?
42 HORTENSIO.
43 My widow says thus she conceives her tale.
44 PETRUCHIO.
45 Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.
46 KATHERINA.
47 ’He that is giddy thinks the world turns round’:
48 I pray you tell me what you meant by that.
49 WIDOW.
50 Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,
51 Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe;
52 And now you know my meaning.
53 KATHERINA.
54 A very mean meaning.
55 WIDOW.
56 Right, I mean you.
57 KATHERINA.
58 And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.
59 PETRUCHIO.
60 To her, Kate!
61 HORTENSIO.
62 To her, widow!
63 PETRUCHIO.
64 A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.
65 HORTENSIO.
66 That’s my office.
67 PETRUCHIO.
68 Spoke like an officer: ha’ to thee, lad.
69 [_Drinks to Hortensio._]
70 BAPTISTA.
71 How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?
72 GREMIO.
73 Believe me, sir, they butt together well.
74 BIANCA.
75 Head and butt! An hasty-witted body
76 Would say your head and butt were head and horn.
77 VINCENTIO.
78 Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken’d you?
79 BIANCA.
80 Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I’ll sleep again.
81 PETRUCHIO.
82 Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun,
83 Have at you for a bitter jest or two.
84 BIANCA.
85 Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,
86 And then pursue me as you draw your bow.
87 You are welcome all.
88 [_Exeunt Bianca, Katherina and Widow._]
89 PETRUCHIO.
90 She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio;
91 This bird you aim’d at, though you hit her not:
92 Therefore a health to all that shot and miss’d.
93 TRANIO.
94 O, sir! Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,
95 Which runs himself, and catches for his master.
96 PETRUCHIO.
97 A good swift simile, but something currish.
98 TRANIO.
99 ’Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
100 ’Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.
101 BAPTISTA.
102 O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.
103 LUCENTIO.
104 I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.
105 HORTENSIO.
106 Confess, confess; hath he not hit you here?
107 PETRUCHIO.
108 A has a little gall’d me, I confess;
109 And as the jest did glance away from me,
110 ’Tis ten to one it maim’d you two outright.
111 BAPTISTA.
112 Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
113 I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.
114 PETRUCHIO.
115 Well, I say no; and therefore, for assurance,
116 Let’s each one send unto his wife,
117 And he whose wife is most obedient,
118 To come at first when he doth send for her,
119 Shall win the wager which we will propose.
120 HORTENSIO.
121 Content. What’s the wager?
122 LUCENTIO.
123 Twenty crowns.
124 PETRUCHIO.
125 Twenty crowns!
126 I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
127 But twenty times so much upon my wife.
128 LUCENTIO.
129 A hundred then.
130 HORTENSIO.
131 Content.
132 PETRUCHIO.
133 A match! ’tis done.
134 HORTENSIO.
135 Who shall begin?
136 LUCENTIO.
137 That will I.
138 Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.
139 BIONDELLO.
140 I go.
141 [_Exit._]
142 BAPTISTA.
143 Son, I’ll be your half, Bianca comes.
144 LUCENTIO.
145 I’ll have no halves; I’ll bear it all myself.
146 Re-enter Biondello.
147 How now! what news?
148 BIONDELLO.
149 Sir, my mistress sends you word
150 That she is busy and she cannot come.
151 PETRUCHIO.
152 How! She’s busy, and she cannot come!
153 Is that an answer?
154 GREMIO.
155 Ay, and a kind one too:
156 Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.
157 PETRUCHIO.
158 I hope better.
159 HORTENSIO.
160 Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
161 To come to me forthwith.
162 [_Exit Biondello._]
163 PETRUCHIO.
164 O, ho! entreat her!
165 Nay, then she must needs come.
166 HORTENSIO.
167 I am afraid, sir,
168 Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.
169 Re-enter Biondello.
170 Now, where’s my wife?
171 BIONDELLO.
172 She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
173 She will not come; she bids you come to her.
174 PETRUCHIO.
175 Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
176 Intolerable, not to be endur’d!
177 Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress,
178 Say I command her come to me.
179 [_Exit Grumio._]
180 HORTENSIO.
181 I know her answer.
182 PETRUCHIO.
183 What?
184 HORTENSIO.
185 She will not.
186 PETRUCHIO.
187 The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.
188 Re-enter Katherina.
189 BAPTISTA.
190 Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!
191 KATHERINA.
192 What is your will sir, that you send for me?
193 PETRUCHIO.
194 Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?
195 KATHERINA.
196 They sit conferring by the parlour fire.
197 PETRUCHIO.
198 Go fetch them hither; if they deny to come,
199 Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.
200 Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.
201 [_Exit Katherina._]
202 LUCENTIO.
203 Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
204 HORTENSIO.
205 And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.
206 PETRUCHIO.
207 Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
208 An awful rule, and right supremacy;
209 And, to be short, what not that’s sweet and happy.
210 BAPTISTA.
211 Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!
212 The wager thou hast won; and I will add
213 Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
214 Another dowry to another daughter,
215 For she is chang’d, as she had never been.
216 PETRUCHIO.
217 Nay, I will win my wager better yet,
218 And show more sign of her obedience,
219 Her new-built virtue and obedience.
220 See where she comes, and brings your froward wives
221 As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.
222 Re-enter Katherina with Bianca and Widow.
223 Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:
224 Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.
225 [_Katherina pulls off her cap and throws it down._]
226 WIDOW.
227 Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh
228 Till I be brought to such a silly pass!
229 BIANCA.
230 Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?
231 LUCENTIO.
232 I would your duty were as foolish too;
233 The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
234 Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!
235 BIANCA.
236 The more fool you for laying on my duty.
237 PETRUCHIO.
238 Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
239 What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.
240 WIDOW.
241 Come, come, you’re mocking; we will have no telling.
242 PETRUCHIO.
243 Come on, I say; and first begin with her.
244 WIDOW.
245 She shall not.
246 PETRUCHIO.
247 I say she shall: and first begin with her.
248 KATHERINA.
249 Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
250 And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
251 To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
252 It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
253 Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
254 And in no sense is meet or amiable.
255 A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled,
256 Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
257 And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
258 Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
259 Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
260 Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
261 And for thy maintenance commits his body
262 To painful labour both by sea and land,
263 To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
264 Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
265 And craves no other tribute at thy hands
266 But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
267 Too little payment for so great a debt.
268 Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
269 Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
270 And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
271 And not obedient to his honest will,
272 What is she but a foul contending rebel
273 And graceless traitor to her loving lord?—
274 I am asham’d that women are so simple
275 To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
276 Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
277 When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
278 Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
279 Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
280 But that our soft conditions and our hearts
281 Should well agree with our external parts?
282 Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
283 My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
284 My heart as great, my reason haply more,
285 To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
286 But now I see our lances are but straws,
287 Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
288 That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
289 Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
290 And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
291 In token of which duty, if he please,
292 My hand is ready; may it do him ease.
293 PETRUCHIO.
294 Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.
295 LUCENTIO.
296 Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha’t.
297 VINCENTIO.
298 ’Tis a good hearing when children are toward.
299 LUCENTIO.
300 But a harsh hearing when women are froward.
301 PETRUCHIO.
302 Come, Kate, we’ll to bed.
303 We three are married, but you two are sped.
304 ’Twas I won the wager,
305 [_To Lucentio._] though you hit the white;
306 And being a winner, God give you good night!
307 [_Exeunt Petruchio and Katherina._]
308 HORTENSIO.
309 Now go thy ways; thou hast tam’d a curst shrew.
310 LUCENTIO.
311 ’Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam’d so.
312 [_Exeunt._]