Act III
Scene I
Padua. Baptista’s house.
Enter Lucentio, Hortensio, and Bianca. | |
Lucentio |
Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir:
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Hortensio |
But, wrangling pedant, this is
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Lucentio |
Preposterous ass, that never read so far
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Hortensio | Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine. |
Bianca |
Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,
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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.
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Bianca | In time I may believe, yet I mistrust. |
Lucentio |
Mistrust it not: for, sure, Aeacides
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Bianca |
I must believe my master; else, I promise you,
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Hortensio |
You may go walk, and give me leave a while:
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Lucentio |
Are you so formal, sir? well, I must wait,
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Hortensio |
Madam, before you touch the instrument,
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Bianca | Why, I am past my gamut long ago. |
Hortensio | Yet read the gamut of Hortensio. |
Bianca |
Call you this gamut? tut, I like it not:
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Enter a Servant. | |
Servant |
Mistress, your father prays you leave your books
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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:
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Scene II
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.
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Katharina |
No shame but mine: I must, forsooth, be forced
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Tranio |
Patience, good Katharine, and Baptista too.
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Katharina | Would Katharine had never seen him though! Exit weeping, followed by Bianca and others. |
Baptista |
Go, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep;
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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-armoury, 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-checked 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 pack-thread. |
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;
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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,
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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
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Petruchio |
Were it better, I should rush in thus.
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Baptista |
Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:
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Tranio |
And tells us, what occasion of import
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Petruchio |
Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:
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Tranio |
See not your bride in these unreverent robes:
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Petruchio | Not I, believe me: thus I’ll visit her. |
Baptista | But thus, I trust, you will not marry her. |
Petruchio |
Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha’ done with words:
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Tranio |
He hath some meaning in his mad attire:
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Baptista | I’ll after him, and see the event of this. Exeunt Baptista, Gremio, and attendants. |
Tranio |
But to her love concerneth us to add
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Lucentio |
Were it not that my fellow-school-master
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Tranio |
That by degrees we mean to look into,
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Re-enter Gremio. | |
Signior Gremio, came you from the church? | |
Gremio | As willingly as e’er I came from school. |
Tranio | And is the bride and bridegroom coming home? |
Gremio |
A bridegroom say you? ’tis a groom indeed,
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Tranio | Curster than she? why, ’tis impossible. |
Gremio | Why he’s a devil, a devil, a very fiend. |
Tranio | Why, she’s a devil, a devil, the devil’s dam. |
Gremio |
Tut, she’s a lamb, a dove, a fool to him!
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Tranio | What said the wench when he rose again? |
Gremio |
Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp’d and swore,
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Re-enter Petruchio, Katharina, Bianca, Baptista, Hortensio, Grumio, and Train. | |
Petruchio |
Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:
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Baptista | Is’t possible you will away to-night? |
Petruchio |
I must away to-day, before night come:
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Tranio | Let us entreat you stay till after dinner. |
Petruchio | It may not be. |
Gremio | Let me entreat you. |
Petruchio | It cannot be. |
Katharina | Let me entreat you. |
Petruchio | I am content. |
Katharina | Are you content to stay? |
Petruchio |
I am content you shall entreat me stay;
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Katharina | Now, if you love me, stay. |
Petruchio | Grumio, my horse. |
Grumio | Ay, sir, they be ready: the oats have eaten the horses. |
Katharina |
Nay, then,
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Petruchio | O, Kate, content thee; prithee, be not angry. |
Katharina |
I will be angry: what hast thou to do?
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Gremio | Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work. |
KATARINA |
Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:
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Petruchio |
They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.
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Baptista | Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones. |
Gremio | Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing. |
Tranio | Of all mad matches never was the like. |
Lucentio | Mistress, what’s your opinion of your sister? |
Bianca | That, being mad herself, she’s madly mated. |
Gremio | I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated. |
Baptista |
Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants
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Tranio | Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it? |
Baptista | She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let’s go. Exeunt. |