The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 459
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Uncase thee, take my colour’d hat and cloak.
When Biondello comes, he waits on thee,
But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.
TRANIO So had you need.
In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
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And I am tied to be obedient –
For so your father charg’d me at our parting,
‘Be serviceable to my son’ quoth he,
Although I think ’twas in another sense –
I am content to be Lucentio,
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Because so well I love Lucentio.
LUCENTIO Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves;
And let me be a slave, t’achieve that maid
Whose sudden sight hath thrall’d my wounded eye.
Enter BIONDELLO.
Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?
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BIONDELLO
Where have I been? Nay, how now, where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stol’n your clothes,
Or you stol’n his, or both? Pray, what’s the news?
LUCENTIO Sirrah, come hither. ’Tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
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Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,
Puts my apparel and my countenance on,
And I for my escape have put on his.
For in a quarrel since I came ashore
I kill’d a man, and fear I was descried.
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Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
While I make way from hence to save my life.
You understand me?
BIONDELLO I, sir? Ne’er a whit.
LUCENTIO And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth.
Tranio is chang’d into Lucentio.
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BIONDELLO The better for him. Would I were so too.
TRANIO
So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
That Lucentio indeed had Baptista’s youngest daughter.
But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master’s I advise
You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies.
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When I am alone, why then I am Tranio,
But in all places else your master Lucentio.
LUCENTIO Tranio, let’s go.
One thing more rests, that thyself execute,
To make one among these wooers. If thou ask me why,
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Sufficeth my reasons are both good and weighty.
Exeunt.
[The presenters above speak.]
1 SERVINGMAN
My lord, you nod, you do not mind the play.
SLY Yes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely.
Comes there any more of it?
PAGE My lord, ’tis but begun.
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SLY ’Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady.
Would ’twere done. [They sit and mark.]
1.2 Enter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO.
PETRUCHIO Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua, but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.
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GRUMIO Knock, sir? Whom should I knock? Is there
any man has rebused your worship?
PETRUCHIO Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.
GRUMIO Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir,
that I should knock you here, sir?
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PETRUCHIO Villain, I say, knock me at this gate,
And rap me well, or I’ll knock your knave’s pate.
GRUMIO
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.
PETRUCHIO Will it not be?
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Faith, sirrah, and you’ll not knock, I’ll ring it.
I’ll try how you can solfa and sing it.
[He wrings him by the ears.]
GRUMIO Help, masters, help! My master is mad.
PETRUCHIO Now knock when I bid you, sirrah villain.
Enter HORTENSIO.
HORTENSIO How now, what’s the matter? My old friend
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Grumio, and my good friend Petruchio? How do you
all at Verona?
PETRUCHIO
Signor Hortensio, come you to part the fray?
Con tutto il cuore ben trovato, may I say.
HORTENSIO Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato
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signor mio Petrucio.
Rise, Grumio, rise. We will compound this quarrel.
GRUMIO Nay, ’tis no matter, sir, what he ‘leges in Latin.
If this be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service,
look you, sir. He bid me knock him and rap him
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soundly, sir. Well, was it fit for a servant to use his
master so, being perhaps, for aught I see, two and
thirty, a pip out?
Whom would to God I had well knock’d at first,
Then had not Grumio come by the worst.
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PETRUCHIO A senseless villain. Good Hortensio,
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,
And could not get him for my heart to do it.
GRUMIO Knock at the gate? O heavens! Spake you not
these words plain, ‘Sirrah, knock me here, rap me
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here, knock me well, and knock me soundly’? And
come you now with ‘knocking at the gate’?
PETRUCHIO Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.
HORTENSIO Petruchio, patience, I am Grumio’s pledge.
Why, this a heavy chance ’twixt him and you,
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Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.
And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale
Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?
PETRUCHIO
Such wind as scatters young men through the world
To seek their fortunes farther than at home,
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Where small experience grows. But in a few,
Signor Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceas’d,
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as best I may.
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Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,
And so am come abroad to see the world.
HORTENSIO
Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee,
And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour’d wife?
Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel,
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And yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich,
And very rich. But th’art too much my friend,
And I’ll not wish thee to her.
PETRUCHIO
Signor Hortensio, ’twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
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One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife –
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance –
Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates’ Xanthippe, or a worse,
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She moves me not, or not removes at least
Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas.
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.
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GRUMIO Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his
mind is. Why, give him gold enough and marry him to
a puppet or an aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne�
��er a
tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as
two and fifty horses. Why, nothing comes amiss, so
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money comes withal.
HORTENSIO Petruchio, since we are stepp’d thus far in,
I will continue that I broach’d in jest.
I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife
With wealth enough, and young and beauteous,
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Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman.
Her only fault, and that is faults enough,
Is that she is intolerable curst,
And shrewd, and froward, so beyond all measure
That, were my state far worser than it is,
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I would not wed her for a mine of gold.
PETRUCHIO
HORTENSIO , peace. Thou know’st not gold’s effect.
Tell me her father’s name and ’tis enough.
For I will board her though she chide as loud
As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.
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HORTENSIO Her father is Baptista Minola,
An affable and courteous gentleman.
Her name is Katherina Minola,
Renown’d in Padua for her scolding tongue.
PETRUCHIO I know her father, though I know not her,
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And he knew my deceased father well.
I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her,
And therefore let me be thus bold with you
To give you over at this first encounter,
Unless you will accompany me thither.
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GRUMIO I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour
lasts. O’ my word, and she knew him as well as I do,
she would think scolding would do little good upon
him. She may perhaps call him half a score knaves or
so. Why, that’s nothing; and he begin once, he’ll rail in
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his rope-tricks. I’ll tell you what, sir, and she stand
him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and
so disfigure her with it that she shall have no more
eyes to see withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.
HORTENSIO Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,
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For in Baptista’s keep my treasure is.
He hath the jewel of my life in hold,
His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca,
And her withholds from me and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love,
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Supposing it a thing impossible,
For those defects I have before rehears’d,
That ever Katherina will be woo’d.
Therefore this order hath Baptista ta’en,
That none shall have access unto Bianca
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Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.
GRUMIO Katherine the curst,
A title for a maid of all titles the worst.
HORTENSIO
Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,
And offer me disguis’d in sober robes
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To old Baptista as a schoolmaster
Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca,
That so I may by this device at least
Have leave and leisure to make love to her,
And unsuspected court her by herself.
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GRUMIO Here’s no knavery. See, to beguile the old folks,
how the young folks lay their heads together.
Enter GREMIO, and LUCENTIO disguised.
Master, master, look about you. Who goes there, ha?
HORTENSIO Peace, Grumio. It is the rival of my love.
Petruchio, stand by awhile.
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GRUMIO A proper stripling and an amorous.
GREMIO O, very well; I have perus’d the note.
Hark you, sir, I’ll have them very fairly bound –
All books of love, see that at any hand –
And see you read no other lectures to her.
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You understand me. Over and beside
Signor Baptista’s liberality,
I’ll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,
And let me have them very well perfum’d,
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
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To whom they go to. What will you read to her?
LUCENTIO Whate’er I read to her, I’ll plead for you
As for my patron, stand you so assur’d,
As firmly as yourself were still in place,
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
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Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.
GREMIO O this learning, what a thing it is!
GRUMIO O this woodcock, what an ass it is!
PETRUCHIO Peace, sirrah.