The Taming of the Drew
Page 41
KATHERINA.
A dish that I do love to feed upon.
GRUMIO.
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.
KATHERINA.
Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.
GRUMIO.
Nay, then I will not: you shall have the mustard,
Or else you get no beef of Grumio.
KATHERINA.
Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.
GRUMIO.
Why then the mustard without the beef.
KATHERINA.
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,
[Beats him.]
That feed'st me with the very name of meat.
Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you
That triumph thus upon my misery!
Go, get thee gone, I say.
[Enter PETRUCHIO with a dish of meat; and HORTENSIO.]
PETRUCHIO.
How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?
HORTENSIO.
Mistress, what cheer?
KATHERINA.
Faith, as cold as can be.
PETRUCHIO.
Pluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.
Here, love; thou seest how diligent I am,
To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee:
[Sets the dish on a table.]
I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.
What! not a word? Nay, then thou lov'st it not,
And all my pains is sorted to no proof.
Here, take away this dish.
KATHERINA.
I pray you, let it stand.
PETRUCHIO.
The poorest service is repaid with thanks;
And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.
KATHERINA.
I thank you, sir.
HORTENSIO.
Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.
Come, Mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.
PETRUCHIO.
[Aside.] Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me.
Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!
Kate, eat apace: and now, my honey love,
Will we return unto thy father's house
And revel it as bravely as the best,
With silken coats and caps, and golden rings,
With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things;
With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery,
With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knavery.
What! hast thou din'd? The tailor stays thy leisure,
To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.
[Enter TAILOR.]
Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;
Lay forth the gown.--
[Enter HABERDASHER.]
What news with you, sir?
HABERDASHER.
Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.
PETRUCHIO.
Why, this was moulded on a porringer;
A velvet dish: fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy:
Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap:
Away with it! come, let me have a bigger.
KATHERINA.
I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,
And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.
PETRUCHIO.
When you are gentle, you shall have one too,
And not till then.
HORTENSIO.
[Aside] That will not be in haste.
KATHERINA.
Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;
And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.
Your betters have endur'd me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.
PETRUCHIO.
Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie;
I love thee well in that thou lik'st it not.
KATHERINA.
Love me or love me not, I like the cap;
And it I will have, or I will have none.
[Exit HABERDASHER.]
PETRUCHIO.
Thy gown? Why, ay: come, tailor, let us see't.
O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?
What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.
What, up and down, carv'd like an appletart?
Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber's shop.
Why, what i' devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?
HORTENSIO.
[Aside] I see she's like to have neither cap nor gown.
TAILOR.
You bid me make it orderly and well,
According to the fashion and the time.
PETRUCHIO.
Marry, and did; but if you be remember'd,
I did not bid you mar it to the time.
Go, hop me over every kennel home,
For you shall hop without my custom, sir.
I'll none of it: hence! make your best of it.
KATHERINA.
I never saw a better fashion'd gown,
More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable;
Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.
PETRUCHIO.
Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.
TAILOR.
She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.
PETRUCHIO.
O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread,
Thou thimble,
Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!
Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!
Away! thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant,
Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!
I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.
TAILOR.
Your worship is deceiv'd: the gown is made
Just as my master had direction.
Grumio gave order how it should be done.
GRUMIO.
I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.
TAILOR.
But how did you desire it 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 cu
t 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?