GREMIO And me too, good Lord!
TRANIO Hush, 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 behavior 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.
KATHARINA A pretty peat! it is best
Put finger in the eye, an 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 took and practise by myself.
LUCENTIO Hark, Tranio! thou may’st 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 resolved:
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. Katharina, you may stay;
For I have more to commune with Bianca.
Exit
KATHARINA 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 cakes 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 Bianco’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, an 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 whipped at the high cross
every morning.
HORTENSIO Faith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten
apples. But come; since this bar in law makes us
friends, it shall be so far forth friendly
maintained all by helping Baptista’s eldest daughter
to a husband we set his youngest free for a husband,
and then have to’t a fresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man
be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.
How say you, Signior Gremio?
GREMIO I am agreed; and would I had given him the best
horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would
thoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the
house of her! Come on.
Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO
TRANIO I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?
LUCENTIO O Tranio, till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness:
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.
TRANIO Master, it is no time to chide you now;
Affection is not rated from the heart:
If love have touch’d you, nought remains but so,
‘Redime te captum quam queas minimo.’
LUCENTIO Gramercies, lad, go forward; this contents:
The rest will comfort, for thy counsel’s sound.
TRANIO Master, you look’d so longly on the maid,
Perhaps you mark’d not what’s the pith of all.
LUCENTIO O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,
Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand.
When with his knees he kiss’d the Cretan strand.
TRANIO Saw you no more? mark’d you not how her sister
Began to scold and raise up such a storm
That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?
LUCENTIO Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move
And with her breath she did perfume the air:
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.
TRANIO Nay, then, ’tis time to stir him from his trance.
I pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,
Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:
Her eldest sister is so curst and shrewd
That till the father rid his hands of her,
Master, your love must live a maid at home;
And therefore has he closely mew’d her up,
Because she will not be annoy’d with suitors.
LUCENTIO Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father’s he!
But art thou not advised, he took some care
To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?
TRANIO Ay, marry, am I, sir; and now ’tis plotted.
LUCENTIO I have it, Tranio.
TRANIO Master, for my hand,
Both our inventions meet and jump in one.
LUCENTIO Tell me thine first.
TRANIO You will be schoolmaster
And undertake the teaching of the maid:
That’s your device.
LUCENTIO It is: may it be done?
TRANIO Not possible; for who shall bear your part,
And be in Padua here Vincentio’s son,
Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,
Visit his countrymen and banquet them?
LUCENTIO Basta; content thee, for I have it full.
We have not yet been seen in any house,
Nor can we lie distinguish’d by our faces
For man or master; then it follows thus;
Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,
Keep house and port and servants as I should:
I will some other be, some Florentine,
Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.
‘Tis hatch’d and shall be so: Tranio, at once
Uncase thee; take my colour’d hat and cloak:
When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;
But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.
TRANIO So had you need.
In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
And I am tied to be obedient;
For so your father charged me at our parting,
‘Be serviceable to my son,’ quoth he,
Although I think ’twas in another sense;
I am content to be Lucentio,
Because so well I love Lucentio.
LUCENTIO Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves:
And let me be a slave, to achieve that maid
Whose sudden sight hath thrall’d my wounded eye.
Here comes the rogue.
Enter BIONDELLO
Sirrah, where have you been?
BIONDELLO Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or
you stolen his? or both? pray, what’s the news?
LUCENTIO Sirrah, come hither: ’tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,
Puts my apparel and my countenance on,
And I for my escape have put on his;
For in a quarrel since I came ashore
I kill’d a man and fear I was descried:
Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
While I make way from hence to save my life:
You understand me?
BIONDELLO I, sir! ne’er a whit.
LUCENTIO And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:
Tranio is changed into Lucentio.
BIONDELLO The better for him: would I were so too!
TRANIO So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
That Lucentio indeed had Baptista’s youngest daughter.
But, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master’s, I advise
You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:
When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;
But in all places else your master Lucentio.
LUCENTIO Tranio, let’s go: one thing more rests, that
thyself execute, to make one among these wooers: if