Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Gre. Believe me, sir, they butt together well. Bian. Head, and butt! an hasty-witted body Would say your head and butt were head and horn.

Vin. Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you?

Bian. Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.

Pet. Nay, that you shall not: since you have begun,

Have at you for a bitter, jest or two!

Bian. Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;

And then pursue me as you draw your bow.

Luc. At last, though long, our jarring notes You are welcome all.
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 thine.
Brother Petruchio, sister Katharina,
And thou, Hortensio, with thy 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.

II

Pet. Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat! Bap. Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

Pet. Padua affords nothing but what is kind. Hor. For both our sakes, I would that word were true.

Pet. Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.

Wid. Then never trust me, if I be afeard. Pet. You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:

I mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.

Wid. He that is giddy thinks the world turns
round.

Pet. Roundly replied.
Kath.

20

Mistress, how mean you that?
Wid. Thus I conceive by him.
Pet. Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio
that?

Hor. My widow says, thus she conceives her
tale.

[Exeunt Bianca, Katharina, and Widow. Pet. She hath 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. 51

Tra. O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his grey-
hound,

Which runs himself and catches for his master. Pet. A good swift simile, but something currish.

Tra. 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:

"Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay. Bap. O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

She will not come; she bids you come to her. Pet. Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,

Intolerable, not to be endured!

Sirrah Grumio. go to your mistress;

[blocks in formation]

Katharine, that cap of yours becomes you not: Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot.

Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh, Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

Bian. Fie! what a foolish duty call you this? Luc. I would your duty were as foolish too: The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.

Bian. The more fool you, for laying on my duty.

Pet. Katharine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women

130

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. Wid. Come, come, you're mocking: we will

have no telling.

Pet. Come on, I say; and first begin with her. Wid. She shall not.

Pet. I say she shall: and first begin with her. Kath. 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,

Say, I command her come to me. [Exit Grumio. Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty; Hor. I know her answer.

Pet.
What?
Hor.
She will not.
Pet. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.
Bap. Now, by my holidame, here comes
Katharina!

[blocks in formation]

140

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 labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, 150
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and
safe;

160

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,

170

[blocks in formation]

Vin. 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

Luc.

But a harsh hearing when women are froward.

Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed.

We three are married, but you two are sped. [To Luc.] 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;

And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt Petruchio and Katharina. Hor. Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.

Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so. [Exeunt.

[blocks in formation]

ACT I.

SCENE I. Rousillon. The COUNT's palace. Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS of ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black.

Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

Ber. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam; you, sir, a father: he that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted rather than lack it where there

is such abundance.

Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment?

Laf. He hath abandoned his physicians, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, O, that 'had'! how sad a passage 'tis !whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king's disease.

Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam?

Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

31

Laf. He was excellent indeed, madam: the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

Laf. A fistula, my lord.

Ber. I heard not of it before.

Laf. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

Count. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity; they are virtues and traitors too: in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness. Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

Count. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena; go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than have it.

61

Hel. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living. Count. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
Laf. How understand we that?
Count. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed
thy father

70

In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue'
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more
will,

That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck
down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell, my lord; "Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord, 80 Advise him. Laf He cannot want the best 40 That shall attend his love.

[blocks in formation]

100

Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him: my imagination
Carries no favour in 't but Bertram's.
I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. "Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. "Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques. Who comes here?

Enter PAROlles.

Hel. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by 't: out with 't! within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: away with 't!

Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

Par. Let me see: marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth : off with 't while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion: richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and the tooth-pick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek: and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears, it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear: will you

[Aside] One that goes with him: I love him for any thing with it?

[blocks in formation]

Par. Are you meditating on virginity? Hel. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you and blow you up. 130 Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

Loss

Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. of virginity is rational increase and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with 't!

Hel. Not my virginity yet......

181

There shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother and a mistress and a friend,
A phoenix, captain and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,
His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-
I know not what he shall. God send him well!
The court's a learning place, and he is one- 191
Par. What one, i' faith?

Hel. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-
Par. What's pity?

Hel. That wishing well had not a body in't,
Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
And show what we alone must think, which never
Returns us thanks.

Enter Page.

200

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »