PETRUCHIO
Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!
Early modern literature
Drama, gender & the body
Modern spelling. Stage directions omitted.
PETRUCHIO
Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!
KATHERINA
The moon! The sun; it is not moonlight now.
PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.
KATHERINA
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 I journey to your father’s house.
Go on and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!
HORTENSIO
Say as he says, or we shall never go.
KATHERINA
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.
KATHERINA
I know it is the moon.
PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.
KATHERINA
Then, God be bless’d, 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 nam’d, even that it is,
And so it shall be so for Katherine.
HORTENSIO
Petruchio, go 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.
PETRUCHIO
Good morrow, gentle mistress; where away?
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
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 .
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake.
HORTENSIO
A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.
KATHERINA
Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
away, or where is abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man whom favourable stars
Allot for his lovely bedfellow.
PETRUCHIO
Why, how now, Kate! I hope art not mad:
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither’d,
And not a maiden, as sayst he is.
KATHERINA
Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green:
Now I perceive art a reverend father;
Pardon, I pray , for my mad mistaking.
PETRUCHIO
Do, good old grandsire, and make known
Which way travellest: if along with us,
We shall be joyful of company.
VINCENTIO
Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,
That with your strange encounter much amaz’d 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 son.
And now by law, as well as reverend age,
I may entitle my loving father:
The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,
son by this married. Wonder not,
Nor be not griev’d: 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 honest son,
Who will of arrival be full joyous.
VINCENTIO
But is this true? or is it else your pleasure,
Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest
Upon the company you overtake?
HORTENSIO
I do assure , father, so it is.
PETRUCHIO
Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;
For our first merriment made jealous.
HORTENSIO
Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.
Have to my widow! and if she be froward,
Then taught Hortensio to be untoward.
Open The Taming of the Shrew in the 1623 First Folio. See its words in the cloud.
Modern spelling for reading. The edition is public domain in the United States. Edition source.