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 tuned.
HORTENSIO You’ll leave his lecture when I am in tune?
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 Madam, my instrument’s in tune.
BIANCA Let’s hear. 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, AEacides
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 masters, take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.
HORTENSIO 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 deceived,
Our fine musician groweth amorous.
HORTENSIO Madam, before you touch the instrument,
To learn the order of my fingering,
I must begin with rudiments of art;
To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,
More pleasant, pithy and effectual,
Than hath been taught by any of my trade:
And there it is in writing, fairly drawn.
BIANCA Why, I am past my gamut long ago.
HORTENSIO Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.
BIANCA [Reads] ”Gamut’ I am, the ground of all accord,
‘A re,’ to Plead Hortensio’s passion;
‘B mi,’ Bianca, take him for thy lord,
‘C fa ut,’ that loves with all affection:
‘D sol re,’ one clef, two notes have I:
‘E la mi,’ show pity, or I die.’
Call you this gamut? tut, I like it not:
Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice,
To change true rules for old inventions.
Enter a Servant
Servant Mistress, your father prays you leave your books
And help to dress your sister’s chamber up:
You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.
BIANCA Farewell, sweet masters both; I must be gone.
Exeunt BIANCA and Servant
LUCENTIO Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.
Exit
HORTENSIO But I have cause to pry into this pedant:
Methinks he looks as though he were in love:
Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble
To cast thy wandering eyes on every stale,
Seize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,
Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing.
Exit
Scene 2
Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.
Enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO, KATHARINA, BIANCA, LUCENTIO, and others, attendants
BAPTISTA [To TRANIO] Signior Lucentio, this is the
‘pointed day.
That Katharina and Petruchio should be married,
And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.
What will be said? what mockery will it be,
To want the bridegroom when the priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!
What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?
KATHARINA No shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced
To give my hand opposed against my heart
Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen;
Who woo’d in haste and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior:
And, to be noted for a merry man,
He’ll woo a thousand, ‘point the day of marriage,
Make feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns;
Yet never means to wed where he hath woo’d.
Now must the world point at poor Katharina,
And say, ‘Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife,
If it would please him come and marry her!’
TRANIO Patience, good Katharina, and Baptista too.
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word:
Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
Though he be merry, yet withal he’s honest.
KATHARINA Would Katharina had never seen him though!
Exit weeping, followed by BIANCA and others
BAPTISTA Go, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep;
For such an injury would vex a very saint,
Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.
Enter BIONDELLO
BIONDELLO Master, master! news, old news, and such news as
you never heard of!
BAPTISTA Is it new and old too? how may that be?
BIONDELLO Why, is it not news, to hear of Petruchio’s coming?
BAPTISTA Is he come?
BIONDELLO Why, no, sir.
BAPTISTA What then?
BIONDELLO He is coming.
BAPTISTA When will he be here?
BIONDELLO When he stands where I am and sees you there.
TRANIO But say, what to thine old news?
BIONDELLO Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old
jerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turned, a pair
of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled,
another laced, an old rusty sword ta’en out of the
town-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless;
with two broken points: his horse hipped with an
old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred;
besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose
in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected
with the fashions, full of wingdalls, sped with
spavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives,
stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the
bots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten;
near-legged before and with, a half-chequed bit
and a head-stall of sheeps leather which, being
restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been
often burst and now repaired with knots; one girth
six time pieced and a woman’s crupper of velure,
which hath two letters for her name fairly set down
in studs, and here and there pieced with packthread.
BAPTISTA Who comes with him?
BIONDELLO O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned
like the horse; with a linen stock on one leg and a
kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red
and blue list; an old hat and ‘the humour of forty
fancies’ pricked in’t for a feather: a monster, a
very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian
footboy or a gentleman’s lackey.
TRANIO ‘Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;
Yet oftentimes he goes but mean-apparell’d.
BAPTISTA I am glad he’s come, howsoe’er he comes.
BIONDELLO Why, sir, he comes not.
BAPTISTA Didst thou not say he comes?
BIONDELLO Who? that Petruchio came?
BAPTISTA Ay, that Petruchio came.
BIONDELLO No, sir, I say his horse comes, with him on his back.
BAPTISTA Why, that’s all one.
BIONDELLO Nay, by Saint Jamy,
I hold you a penny,
A horse and a man
Is more than one,
And yet not many.
Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO
PETRUCHIO Come, where be these gallants? who’s at home?
BAPTISTA You are welcome, sir.
PETRUCHIO And yet I come not well.
BAPTISTA And yet you halt not.
TRANIO Not so well apparell’d
As I wish you were.
PETRUCHIO Were it better, I should rush in thus.
But where is Kate? where is my lovely bride?
How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown:
And wherefore gaze this goodly company,
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet or unusual prodigy?
BAPTISTA Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:
First were we sad, fearing you would not come;
Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.
Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,
An eye-sore to our solemn festival!
TRANIO And tells us, what occasion of import