The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (best novel books to read txt) 📕

should be made?

 

GRUMIO.

Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

 

TAILOR.

But did you not request to have it cut?

 

GRUMIO.

Thou hast faced many things.

 

TAILOR. I have.

 

GRUMIO.

Face not me. Thou hast braved many men; brave not me: I

will neither be fac’d nor brav’d. I say unto thee, I bid thy

master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces:

ergo, thou liest.

 

TAILOR.

Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Read it.

 

GRUMIO.

The note lies in ‘s throat, if he say I said so.

 

TAILOR.

‘Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown.’

 

GRUMIO.

Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the

skirts of it and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread;

I said, a gown.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Proceed.

 

TAILOR.

‘With a small compassed cape.’

 

GRUMIO.

I confess the cape.

 

TAILOR.

‘With a trunk sleeve.’

 

GRUMIO.

I confess two sleeves.

 

TAILOR.

‘The sleeves curiously cut.’

 

PETRUCHIO.

Ay, there’s the villainy.

 

GRUMIO.

Error i’ the bill, sir; error i’ the bill. I commanded the

sleeves should be cut out, and sew’d up again; and that I’ll

prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

 

TAILOR.

This is true that I say; an I had thee in place where thou

shouldst know it.

 

GRUMIO.

I am for thee straight; take thou the bill, give me thy

mete-yard, and spare not me.

 

HORTENSIO.

God-a-mercy, Grumio! Then he shall have no odds.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.

 

GRUMIO.

You are i’ the right, sir; ‘tis for my mistress.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Go, take it up unto thy master’s use.

 

GRUMIO.

Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress’ gown for

thy master’s use!

 

PETRUCHIO.

Why, sir, what’s your conceit in that?

 

GRUMIO.

O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for.

Take up my mistress’ gown to his master’s use!

O fie, fie, fie!

 

PETRUCHIO.

[Aside] Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.

[To Tailor.] Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.

 

HORTENSIO.

[Aside to Tailor.] Tailor, I’ll pay thee for thy gown to-morrow;

Take no unkindness of his hasty words.

Away, I say! commend me to thy master.

 

[Exit TAILOR.]

 

PETRUCHIO.

Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father’s

Even in these honest mean habiliments.

Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor

For ‘tis the mind that makes the body rich;

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,

So honour peereth in the meanest habit.

What, is the jay more precious than the lark

Because his feathers are more beautiful?

Or is the adder better than the eel

Because his painted skin contents the eye?

O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse

For this poor furniture and mean array.

If thou account’st it shame, lay it on me;

And therefore frolic; we will hence forthwith,

To feast and sport us at thy father’s house.

Go call my men, and let us straight to him;

And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;

There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.

Let’s see; I think ‘tis now some seven o’clock,

And well we may come there by dinner-time.

 

KATHERINA.

I dare assure you, sir, ‘tis almost two,

And ‘twill be supper-time ere you come there.

 

PETRUCHIO.

It shall be seven ere I go to horse.

Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,

You are still crossing it. Sirs, let ‘t alone:

I will not go to-day; and ere I do,

It shall be what o’clock I say it is.

 

HORTENSIO.

Why, so this gallant will command the sun.

 

[Exeunt.]

 

SCENE IV. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

 

[Enter TRANIO, and the PEDANT dressed like VINCENTIO.]

 

TRANIO.

Sir, this is the house; please it you that I call?

 

PEDANT.

Ay, what else? and, but I be deceived,

Signior Baptista may remember me,

Near twenty years ago in Genoa,

Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.

 

TRANIO.

‘Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,

With such austerity as ‘longeth to a father.

 

PEDANT.

I warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy;

‘Twere good he were school’d.

 

[Enter BIONDELLO.]

 

TRANIO.

Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,

Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.

Imagine ‘twere the right Vincentio.

 

BIONDELLO.

Tut! fear not me.

 

TRANIO.

But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?

 

BIONDELLO.

I told him that your father was at Venice,

And that you look’d for him this day in Padua.

 

TRANIO.

Thou’rt a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.

Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.

 

[Enter BAPTISTA and LUCENTIO.]

 

Signior Baptista, you are happily met.

[To the PEDANT] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of;

I pray you stand good father to me now;

Give me Bianca for my patrimony.

 

PEDANT.

Soft, son!

Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua

To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio

Made me acquainted with a weighty cause

Of love between your daughter and himself:

And,—for the good report I hear of you,

And for the love he beareth to your daughter,

And she to him,—to stay him not too long,

I am content, in a good father’s care,

To have him match’d; and, if you please to like

No worse than I, upon some agreement

Me shall you find ready and willing

With one consent to have her so bestow’d;

For curious I cannot be with you,

Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

 

BAPTISTA.

Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.

Your plainness and your shortness please me well.

Right true it is your son Lucentio here

Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,

Or both dissemble deeply their affections;

And therefore, if you say no more than this,

That like a father you will deal with him,

And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,

The match is made, and all is done:

Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

 

TRANIO.

I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best

We be affied, and such assurance ta’en

As shall with either part’s agreement stand?

 

BAPTISTA.

Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know

Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants;

Besides, old Gremio is hearkening still,

And happily we might be interrupted.

 

TRANIO.

Then at my lodging, an it like you:

There doth my father lie; and there this night

We’ll pass the business privately and well.

Send for your daughter by your servant here;

My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.

The worst is this, that at so slender warning

You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.

 

BAPTISTA.

It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,

And bid Bianca make her ready straight;

And, if you will, tell what hath happened:

Lucentio’s father is arriv’d in Padua,

And how she’s like to be Lucentio’s wife.

 

LUCENTIO.

I pray the gods she may, with all my heart!

 

TRANIO.

Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.

Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?

Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer;

Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.

 

BAPTISTA.

I follow you.

 

[Exeunt TRANIO, Pedant, and BAPTISTA.]

 

BIONDELLO.

Cambio!

 

LUCENTIO.

What say’st thou, Biondello?

 

BIONDELLO.

You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?

 

LUCENTIO.

Biondello, what of that?

 

BIONDELLO.

Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind to expound

the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.

 

LUCENTIO.

I pray thee moralize them.

 

BIONDELLO.

Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the

deceiving father of a deceitful son.

 

LUCENTIO.

And what of him?

 

BIONDELLO.

His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.

 

LUCENTIO.

And then?

 

BIONDELLO.

The old priest at Saint Luke’s church is at your

command at all hours.

 

LUCENTIO.

And what of all this?

 

BIONDELLO.

I cannot tell, except they are busied about a

counterfeit assurance. Take your assurance of her, cum privilegio

ad imprimendum solum; to the church! take the priest, clerk, and

some sufficient honest witnesses.

If this be not that you look for, I have more to say,

But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.

 

[Going.]

 

LUCENTIO.

Hear’st thou, Biondello?

 

BIONDELLO.

I cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an afternoon

as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and so

may you, sir; and so adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to

go to Saint Luke’s to bid the priest be ready to come against you

come with your appendix.

 

[Exit.]

 

LUCENTIO.

I may, and will, if she be so contented.

She will be pleas’d; then wherefore should I doubt?

Hap what hap may, I’ll roundly go about her;

It shall go hard if Cambio go without her:

 

[Exit.]

 

SCENE V. A public road

 

[Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and SERVANTS.]

 

PETRUCHIO.

Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.

Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

 

KATHERINA.

The moon! The sun; it is not moonlight now.

 

PETRUCHIO.

I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

 

KATHERINA.

I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Now by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,

It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,

Or ere I journey to your father’s house.

Go on and fetch our horses back again.

Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!

 

HORTENSIO.

Say as he says, or we shall never go.

 

KATHERINA.

Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,

And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;

And if you please to call it a rush-candle,

Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

 

PETRUCHIO.

I say it is the moon.

 

KATHERINA.

I know it is the moon.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.

 

KATHERINA.

Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun;

But sun it is not when you say it is not,

And the moon changes even as your mind.

What you will have it nam’d, even that it is,

And so it shall be so for Katherine.

 

HORTENSIO.

Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,

And not unluckily against the bias.

But, soft! Company is coming here.

 

[Enter VINCENTIO, in a travelling dress.]

 

[To VINCENTIO] Good-morrow, gentle mistress; where away?

Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,

Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?

Such war of white and red within her cheeks!

What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty

As those two eyes become that heavenly face?

Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.

Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake.

 

HORTENSIO.

‘A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.

 

KATHERINA.

Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,

Whither away, or where is thy abode?

Happy the parents of so fair a child;

Happier the man whom favourable stars

Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow.

 

PETRUCHIO.

Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:

This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither’d,

And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.

 

KATHERINA.

Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,

That have been so bedazzled with the sun

That everything I look on seemeth green:

Now I perceive thou art