The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare.
Title: The Taming of the Shrew.
Author: William Shakespeare.
Genre: Literature, fiction, play, comedy.
Country: U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: ~1590-1594.
Summary: Love and wit conquer all in the sparkling comedy of self-delusion and disguise. Padua holds many suitors for the hand of fair and gentle Bianca, but Bianca may not be married until her spinster sister, Kate, is wed. Kate is strong-willed, sharp-tongued, and unobliging - a "shrew." The witty adventurer and gold-digger Petruchio undertakes the task of taming her, setting about transforming Kate from foul-tempered termagant to loving wife. Meanwhile, young Lucentio and his clever servant, Tranio, plot to win Bianca.
My rating: 7/10.
My review:
♥ Hostess. I know my remedy; I must go fetch the thirdborough.
[Exit.]
Sly. Third or fourth or fifth borough, I'll answer him by law.
♥ Lord. 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, ow foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man.
♥ Second Huntsman. It would seem strange unto him when he waked.
Lord. Even as a flatt'ring dream or worthless fancy.
♥ Sly. 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 overleather.
Lord. 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 infusèd 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 ale-wife 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, am I not bestraught!
♥ 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.
♥ Sly. 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.
♥ Sly. Madam wife, they say that I have dreamed
And slept above some fifteen year or more.
Page. 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.
♥ 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. Come, madam wife, sit by my side
And let the world slip. We shall ne'er be younger.
♥ 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.
♥ Hortensio. Mates, maid? How mean you that? No mates for you
Unless you were of gentler, milder mold.
Kate. 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!
♥ Hortensio. Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten apples.
♥ Tranio. I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?
Lucentio. O Trantio, 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. 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 strond.
..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. 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.
♥ Tranio. I am content to be Lucentio
Because so well I love Lucentio.
♥ 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. I, sir? Ne'er a whit.
♥ Hortensio. 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.
♥ 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 burthen 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.
..Hortensio. 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.
♥ Lucentio. What'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!
♥ Gremio. Beloved of me, and that my deeds shall prove.
Grunio. [Aside] And that his bags shall prove.
Hortensio. Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love.
♥ Gremio. O, sir, such a life with such a wife were strange.
But if you have a stomach, to't a God's name;
You shall have me assisting you in all.
But will you woo this wildcat?
Petruchio. Will I live?
Grumio. [Aside] 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 chafèd with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitchèd 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. [Aside] For he fears none.
♥ Gremio. What, this gentleman will out-talk us all.
Lucentio. Sir, give him head. I know he'll prove a jade.
♥ Tranio. Sir, I shall not be slack, in sign whereof,
Please ye 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.
♥ Gremio. Backare, 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.
♥ 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.
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.
♥ Hortensio. And with that word she stroke me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way.
And there I stood amazèd 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 e'er I did.
O how I long to have some chat with her!
♥ Petruchio. I'll attend her here
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 the 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 marrièd.
But here she comes, and now, Petruchio, speak.
♥ Petruchio. Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.
Kate. 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?
Kate. A joint stool.
Petruchio. Thou hast hit it; come sit on me.
Kate. Asses are made to bear and so are you.
Petruchio. WOmen are made to bear and so are you.
Kate. Not such jade as you, if me you mean.
♥ Petruchio. Come, come, you wasp, i' faith you are too angry.
Kate. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio. My remedy is then to pluck it out.
Kate. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
Petruchio. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.
Kate. In his tongue.
Petruchio. Whose tongue?
Kate. 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-
[She strikes him.]
♥ Petruchio. 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.
♥ Baptista. Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part
And venture madly on a desperate mart.
Tranio. '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.
♥ Tranio. I am the one that loves Bianca more
Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.
Gremio. Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.
Tranio. Graybeard, thy love doth freeze.
Gremio. But thine doth fry.
Skipper, stand back, 'tis age that nourisheth.
Tranio. But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.
♥ Bianca. Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong
To strive for that which resteth in my choice.
♥ Hortensio. 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.
♥ Tranio. Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.
Petruchio. It may not be.
Gremio. Let me entreat you.
Petruchio. It cannot be.
Kate. Let me entreat you.
Petruchio. I am content.
Kate. Are you content to stay?
Petruchio. I am content you shall entreat me stay,
But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.
♥ Kate. I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist.
♥ Tranio. Of all mad matches never was the like.
Lucentio. Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister?
Bianca. That being mad herself, she's madly mated.
Gremio. I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.
♥ 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. Let's ha't, good Grumio.
Grumio. Lend thine ear.
Curtis. Here.
Grumio. There.
[Strikes him.]
Curtis. This 'tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.
Grumio. And therefore 'tis called a sensible tale, and this cuff was to knock at your ear and beseech list'ning.
♥ 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.
♥ Petruchio. 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.
♥ Enter Servants with supper.
Petruchio. 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 walkèd on his way"-
Out, you rogue, you pluck my foot awry!
Take that, and mend the plucking of the other.
[Strikes him.]
Be merry, Kate. Some water here! What ho!
Enter one with water.
..Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?
Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.
You whoreson villain, will you let it fall?
[Strikes him.]
Kate. 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 Servingman. 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,
[Throws food and dishes at them.]
♥ Petruchio. 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 show.
♥ Lucentio. Now mistress, profit you in what you read?
Bianca. What, master, read you? First resolve me that.
Lucentio. I read that I profess, the Art to Love.
Bianca. And you may prove, sir, master of your art.
Lucentio. While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.
♥ 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.
♥ Hortensio. Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love, and so I take my leave
In resolution as I swore before.
♥ Kate. 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. 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. 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 dinnertime.
Kate. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two,
And 'twill be suppertime 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.
♥ Biondello. Then thus. Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving father of a deceitful son.
♥ Petruchio. Good lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon.
Kate. The moon? The sun. It is not moonlight now.
Petruchio. I say it is the moon that shines so bright.
Kate. 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 ere 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 Kate] Say as he says or we shall never go.
Kate. 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.
Kate. I know it is the moon.
Petruchio. Nay, then you lie. It is the blessèd sun.
Kate. Then God be blessed, it is the blessèd 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. [Aside] Petruchio, go thy ways. The field is won.
♥ Enter Vincentio.]
Petruchio. [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] 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.
Kate. 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 are not mad.
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered,
And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.
Kate. 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.
♥ 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. My cake is dough, but I'll in among the rest
Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.
♥ Petruchio. First kiss me, Kate, and we will.
Kate. What, in the midst of the street?
Petruchio. What, art thou ashamed of me?
Kate. No sir, God forbid, but ashamed to kiss.
Petruchio. Why, then let's home again. [To Grumio]
Come sirrah, let's away.
Kate. Nay, I will give thee a kiss. Now pray thee, love, stay.
Petruchio. Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate.
Better once than never, for never too late.
♥ 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.
♥ Lucentio. 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. ..I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.
Widow. He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
..Kate. "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.
Kate. A very mean meaning.
♥ Petruchio. 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. Here, Signior Tranio,
The bird you aimed at, though you hit her not;
Therefore a health to all that shot and missed.
♥ Kate. Fie, fie, unknit that threatening 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 li'st 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.