Comedy plays; Man-woman relationships -- Drama; Married people -- Drama; Padua (Italy) -- Drama; Sex role -- Drama
Enter Lucentio, Hortensio and Bianca.
LUCENTIO.
Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.
Have you so soon forgot the entertainment
Her sister Katherine welcome’d you withal?
HORTENSIO.
But, wrangling pedant, this is
The patroness of heavenly harmony:
Then give me leave to have prerogative;
And when in music we have spent an hour,
Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.
LUCENTIO.
Preposterous ass, that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain’d!
Was it not to refresh the mind of man
After his studies or his usual pain?
Then give me leave to read philosophy,
And while I pause serve in your harmony.
HORTENSIO.
Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.
BIANCA.
Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,
To strive for that which resteth in my choice.
I am no breeching scholar in the schools,
I’ll not be tied to hours nor ’pointed times,
But learn my lessons as I please myself.
And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down;
Take you your instrument, play you the whiles;
His lecture will be done ere you have tun’d.
HORTENSIO.
You’ll leave his lecture when I am in tune?
[_Retires._]
LUCENTIO.
That will be never: tune your instrument.
BIANCA.
Where left we last?
LUCENTIO.
Here, madam:—
_Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;
Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis._
BIANCA.
Construe them.
LUCENTIO.
_Hic ibat_, as I told you before, _Simois_, I am Lucentio, _hic est_,
son unto Vincentio of Pisa, _Sigeia tellus_, disguised thus to get your
love, _Hic steterat_, and that Lucentio that comes a-wooing, _Priami_,
is my man Tranio, _regia_, bearing my port, _celsa senis_, that we
might beguile the old pantaloon.
HORTENSIO. [_Returning._]
Madam, my instrument’s in tune.
BIANCA.
Let’s hear.—
[Hortensio _plays._]
O fie! the treble jars.
LUCENTIO.
Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.
BIANCA.
Now let me see if I can construe it: _Hic ibat Simois_, I know you not;
_hic est Sigeia tellus_, I trust you not; _Hic steterat Priami_, take
heed he hear us not; _regia_, presume not; _celsa senis_, despair not.
HORTENSIO.
Madam, ’tis now in tune.
LUCENTIO.
All but the base.
HORTENSIO.
The base is right; ’tis the base knave that jars.
[_Aside_] How fiery and forward our pedant is!
Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love:
Pedascule, I’ll watch you better yet.
BIANCA.
In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.
LUCENTIO.
Mistrust it not; for sure, Æacides
Was Ajax, call’d so from his grandfather.
BIANCA.
I must believe my master; else, I promise you,
I should be arguing still upon that doubt;
But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.
Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.
HORTENSIO.
[_To Lucentio_] You may go walk and give me leave a while;
My lessons make no music in three parts.
LUCENTIO.
Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,
[_Aside_] And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv’d,
Our fine musician groweth amorous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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