Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Adaptations; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stories, plots, etc. -- Juvenile literature
Petruchio could not be persuaded to change his dress; he said Katharine
was to be married to him, and not to his clothes; and finding it was in
vain to argue with him, to the church they went, he still behaving in
the same mad way, for when the priest asked Petruchio if Katharine
should be his wife, he swore so loud that she should, that, all amazed,
the priest let fall his book, and as he stooped to take it up, this
mad-brained bridegroom gave him such a cuff, that down fell the priest
and his book again. And all the while they were being married he
stamped and swore so, that the high-spirited Katharine trembled and
shook with fear. After the ceremony was over, while they were yet in
the church, he called for wine, and drank a loud health to the company,
and threw a sop which was at the bottom of the glass full in the
sexton's face, giving no other reason for this strange act, than that
the sexton's beard grew thin and hungerly, and seemed to ask the sop as
he was drinking. Never sure was there such a mad marriage; but
Petruchio did but put this wildness on, the better to succeed in the
plot he had formed to tame his shrewish wife.
Baptista had provided a sumptuous marriage feast, but when they
returned from church, Petruchio, taking hold of Katharine, declared his
intention of carrying his wife home instantly: and no remonstrance of
his father-in-law, or angry words of the enraged Katharine, could make
him change his purpose. He claimed a husband's right to dispose of his
wife as he pleased, and away he hurried Katharine off: he seeming so
daring and resolute that no one dared attempt to stop him.
Petruchio mounted his wife upon a miserable horse, lean and lank, which
he had picked out for the purpose, and himself and his servant no
better mounted; they journeyed on through rough and miry ways, and ever
when this horse of Katharine's stumbled, he would storm and swear at
the poor jaded beast, who could scarce crawl under his burthen, as if
he had been the most passionate man alive.
At length, after a weary journey, during which Katharine had heard
nothing but the wild ravings of Petruchio at the servant and the
horses, they arrived at his house. Petruchio welcomed her kindly to her
home, but he resolved she should have neither rest nor food that night.
The tables were spread, and supper soon served; but Petruchio,
pretending to find fault with every dish, threw the meat about the
floor, and ordered the servants to remove it away; and all this he did,
as he said, in love for his Katharine, that she might not eat meat that
was not well dressed. And when Katharine, weary and supperless, retired
to rest, he found the same fault with the bed, throwing the pillows and
bedclothes about the room, so that she was forced to sit down in a
chair, where if she chanced to drop asleep, she was presently awakened
by the loud voice of her husband, storming at the servants for the
ill-making of his wife's bridal-bed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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