Early modern literature
Drama, gender & the body
Modern spelling. Stage directions omitted.
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 self-same kindness welcome .
Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,
And , Hortensio, with 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.
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.
KATHERINA
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.
KATHERINA
’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.
KATHERINA
A very mean meaning.
WIDOW
Right, I mean you.
KATHERINA
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 , lad.
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, that awaken’d 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.
PETRUCHIO
She prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio;
This bird you aim’d at, though you hit her not:
Therefore a health to all that shot and miss’d.
TRANIO
O, sir! Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself, and catches for his master.
PETRUCHIO
A good swift simile, but something currish.
TRANIO
well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
thought your deer does hold you at a bay.
BAPTISTA
O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.
LUCENTIO
I thank for that gird, good Tranio.
HORTENSIO
Confess, confess; he not hit you here?
PETRUCHIO
A has a little gall’d me, I confess;
And as the jest did glance away from me,
ten to one it maim’d you two outright.
BAPTISTA
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think 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 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! done.
HORTENSIO
Who shall begin?
LUCENTIO
That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.
BIONDELLO
I go.
BAPTISTA
Son, I’ll be your half, Bianca comes.
LUCENTIO
I’ll have no halves; I’ll bear it all myself.
LUCENTIO
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
Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.
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.
HORTENSIO
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 endur’d!
Grumio, go to your mistress,
Say I command her come to me.
HORTENSIO
I know her answer.
PETRUCHIO
What?
HORTENSIO
She will not.
PETRUCHIO
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.
BAPTISTA
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!
KATHERINA
What is your will sir, that you send for me?
PETRUCHIO
Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?
KATHERINA
They sit conferring by the parlour fire.
PETRUCHIO
Go fetch them ; if they deny to come,
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.
Away, I say, and bring them straight.
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 , good Petruchio!
The wager won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is chang’d, 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.
See where she comes, and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.
PETRUCHIO
Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.
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,
cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!
BIANCA
The more fool you for laying on my duty.
PETRUCHIO
Katherine, I charge , 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.
KATHERINA
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
To wound lord, king, governor:
It blots beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman mov’d 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.
husband is lord, life, keeper,
head, sovereign; one that cares for ,
And for maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at 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 asham’d 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 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 ! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.
LUCENTIO
Well, go ways, old lad, for ha’t.
VINCENTIO
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.
I won the wager,
though you hit the white;
And being a winner, God give you good night!
HORTENSIO
Now go ways; tam’d a curst shrew.
LUCENTIO
a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam’d so.
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.