The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (top 10 motivational books txt) đź“•
Description
In the Italian city of Padua, a young gentleman named Lucentio comes to study at one of the city’s colleges. As is often the fate of men in Shakespeare’s plays, Lucentio falls in love at first sight. The object of his affection, Bianca, is the beautiful and docile daughter of a rich merchant. Her father, Baptista Minola, has declared that no one can marry Bianca until her older sister Katharina has been married first.
Katharina is the polar opposite of her sister: vicious, foul-tempered, sharp-tongued, and stubborn. Any man in her vicinity is at risk of receiving her brutal insults and physical attacks. It’s no surprise that no man wants to marry her—or that’s what she believes, until an equally difficult man named Petruchio arrives in Padua.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
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- Author: William Shakespeare
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Upon my life, I am a lord indeed
And not a tinker nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale. Second Servant
Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?
O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream;
Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.
These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?
O, yes, my lord, but very idle words:
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;
And rail upon the hostess of the house;
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal’d quarts:
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up,
As Stephen Sly and did John Naps of Greece
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell
And twenty more such names and men as these
Which never were nor no man ever saw.
Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?
Are you my wife and will not call me husband?
My men should call me “lord:” I am your goodman.
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.
Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d
And slept above some fifteen year or more.
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon’d from your bed.
’Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you and come now to bed.
Thrice-noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two,
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charged,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
Your honour’s players, heating your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
Padua. A public place.
Enter Lucentio and his man Tranio. LucentioTranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy;
And by my father’s love and leave am arm’d
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant, well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renown’d for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincentio, come of Bentivolii.
Vincentio’s son brought up in Florence
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.
Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en:
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
But stay a while: what company is this?
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolved you know;
That is, not bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder:
If either of you both love Katharina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.
Aside. To cart her rather: she’s too rough for me.
There, There, Hortensio, will you any wife?
I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?
Mates,
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