LUCENTIO
Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.
Have you so soon forgot the entertainment
Her sister Katherine welcome’d you ?
HORTENSIO
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
Preposterous ass, that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain’d!
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
, I will not bear these braves of .
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;
Take you your instrument, play you the whiles;
His lecture will be done you have tun’d.
HORTENSIO
You’ll leave his lecture when I am in tune?
LUCENTIO
That will be never: tune your instrument.
BIANCA
Where left we last?
LUCENTIO
Here, madam:—
Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;
Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.
BIANCA
Construe 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
Madam, my instrument’s in tune.
BIANCA
Let’s hear.—
BIANCA
O fie! the treble jars.
LUCENTIO
Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.
BIANCA
Now let me see if I can construe 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
Madam, now in tune.
LUCENTIO
All but the base.
HORTENSIO
The base is right; the base that jars.
How fiery and forward our pedant is!
Now, for my life, the court my love:
Pedascule, I’ll watch you better yet.
BIANCA
In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.
LUCENTIO
Mistrust it not; for sure, Æacides
Was Ajax, call’d 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, Licio, to you.
Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.
HORTENSIO
You may go walk and give me leave a while;
My lessons make no music in three parts.
LUCENTIO
Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,
And watch ; for, but I be deceiv’d,
Our fine musician groweth amorous.
HORTENSIO
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 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.
BIANCA
Gamut I am, the ground of all accord,
A re, to plead Hortensio’s passion;
B mi, Bianca, take him for 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.
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.
HORTENSIO
But I have cause to pry into this pedant:
he looks as though he were in love.
Yet if thoughts, Bianca, be so humble
To cast wand’ring eyes on every stale,
Seize that list: if once I find ranging,
Hortensio will be quit with by changing.