The Taming of the Shrew

come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endured!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;
Say, I command her to come to me. Exit Grumio. 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 Katharina! Re-enter Katharina. Katharina What is your will, sir, that you send for me? Petruchio Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife? Katharina They sit conferring by the parlour fire. Petruchio

Go fetch them hither: if they deny to come,
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight. Exit Katharina.

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,
And awful rule and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not, that’s sweet and happy?

Baptista

Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is changed, 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.

Re-enter Katharina, with Bianca and Widow.

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

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,
Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.

Bianca The more fool you, for laying on my duty. Petruchio

Katharina, I charge thee, 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. Katharina

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 labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest 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.

Petruchio Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate. Lucentio Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha’t. Vincentio ’Tis 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.
To Lucentio. ’Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;
And, being a winner, God give you good night! Exeunt Petruchio and Katharina.

Hortensio Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew. Lucentio ’Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so. Exeunt.

Colophon

The Taming of the Shrew
was published in 1593 by
William Shakespeare.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1993 by
Jeremy Hylton
for the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
The Taming of the Shrew,
a painting completed in 1861 by
Sir John Gilbert.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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