Comedy plays; Man-woman relationships -- Drama; Married people -- Drama; Padua (Italy) -- Drama; Sex role -- Drama
GREMIO.
And me, too, good Lord!
TRANIO.
Husht, master! Here’s some good pastime toward:
That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.
LUCENTIO.
But in the other’s silence do I see
Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety.
Peace, Tranio!
TRANIO.
Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.
BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, that I may soon make good
What I have said,—Bianca, get you in:
And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,
For I will love thee ne’er the less, my girl.
KATHERINA.
A pretty peat! it is best put finger in the eye, and she knew why.
BIANCA.
Sister, content you in my discontent.
Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
My books and instruments shall be my company,
On them to look, and practise by myself.
LUCENTIO.
Hark, Tranio! thou mayst hear Minerva speak.
HORTENSIO.
Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?
Sorry am I that our good will effects
Bianca’s grief.
GREMIO.
Why will you mew her up,
Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
And make her bear the penance of her tongue?
BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv’d.
Go in, Bianca.
[_Exit Bianca._]
And for I know she taketh most delight
In music, instruments, and poetry,
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house
Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,
Prefer them hither; for to cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up;
And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;
For I have more to commune with Bianca.
[_Exit._]
KATHERINA.
Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What! shall I be appointed
hours, as though, belike, I knew not what to take and what to leave?
Ha!
[_Exit._]
GREMIO.
You may go to the devil’s dam: your gifts are so good here’s none will
hold you. Their love is not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our
nails together, and fast it fairly out; our cake’s dough on both sides.
Farewell: yet, for the love I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any
means light on a fit man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will
wish him to her father.
HORTENSIO.
So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray. Though the nature of our
quarrel yet never brooked parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us
both,—that we may yet again have access to our fair mistress, and be
happy rivals in Bianca’s love,—to labour and effect one thing
specially.
GREMIO.
What’s that, I pray?
HORTENSIO.
Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.
GREMIO.
A husband! a devil.
HORTENSIO.
I say, a husband.
GREMIO.
I say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though her father be very
rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell?
HORTENSIO.
Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine to endure her loud
alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in the world, and a man could
light on them, would take her with all faults, and money enough.
GREMIO.
I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this condition: to
be whipp’d at the high cross every morning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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