Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play. [Music plays.]
Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA, BAPTISTA, HORTENSIO with GRUMIO and attendants.
PETRUCHIO
Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains.
I know you think to dine with me today,
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And have prepar’d great store of wedding cheer,
But so it is, my haste doth call me hence,
And therefore here I mean to take my leave.
BAPTISTA Is’t possible you will away tonight?
PETRUCHIO I must away today before night come.
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Make it no wonder. If you knew my business,
You would entreat me rather go than stay.
And honest company, I thank you all
That have beheld me give away myself
To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.
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Dine with my father, drink a health to me,
For I must hence, and farewell to you all.
TRANIO Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.
PETRUCHIO It may not be.
GREMIO Let me entreat you.
PETRUCHIO It cannot be.
KATHERINA Let me entreat you.
PETRUCHIO I am content.
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KATHERINA Are you content to stay?
PETRUCHIO I am content you shall entreat me stay;
But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.
KATHERINA Now if you love me, stay.
PETRUCHIO Grumio, my horse.
GRUMIO
Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.
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KATHERINA Nay then,
Do what thou canst, I will not go today,
No, nor tomorrow, not till I please myself.
The door is open, sir, there lies your way,
You may be jogging whiles your boots are green.
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For me, I’ll not be gone till I please myself.
’Tis like you’ll prove a jolly surly groom,
That take it on you at the first so roundly.
PETRUCHIO O Kate, content thee, prithee be not angry.
KATHERINA I will be angry; what hast thou to do?
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Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.
GREMIO Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.
KATHERINA Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.
I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist.
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PETRUCHIO
They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.
Obey the bride, you that attend on her.
Go to the feast, revel and domineer,
Carouse full measure to her maidenhead,
Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves.
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But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
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My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing,
And here she stands. Touch her whoever dare!
I’ll bring mine action on the proudest he
That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,
Draw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves,
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Rescue thy mistress if thou be a man.
Fear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch thee, Kate.
I’ll buckler thee against a million.
Exeunt Petruchio, Katherina and Grumio.
BAPTISTA Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.
GREMIO
Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.
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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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For to supply the places at the table,
You know there wants no junkets at the feast.
LUCENTIO , you shall supply the bridegroom’s place,
And let Bianca take her sister’s room.
TRANIO Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?
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BAPTISTA
She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let’s go.
Exeunt.
4.1 Enter GRUMIO.
GRUMIO Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters,
and all foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? Was ever
man so rayed? Was ever man so weary? I am sent
before to make a fire, and they are coming after to
warm them. Now, were I not a little pot and soon hot,
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my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to
the roof of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I
should come by a fire to thaw me. But I with blowing
the fire shall warm myself, for, considering the
weather, a taller man than I will take cold. Holla, ho!
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Curtis!
Enter CURTIS.
CURTIS Who is that calls so coldly?
GRUMIO A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou mayst
slide from my shoulder to my heel with no greater a
run but my head and my neck. A fire, good Curtis.
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CURTIS Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?
GRUMIO O ay, Curtis, ay – and therefore fire, fire, cast
on no water.
CURTIS Is she so hot a shrew as she’s reported?
GRUMIO She was, good Curtis, before this frost. But
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thou know’st winter tames man, woman, and beast; for
it hath tamed my old master, and my new mistress,
and myself, fellow Curtis.
CURTIS Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.
GRUMIO Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot,
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and so long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire,
or shall I complain on thee to our mistress, whose
hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon feel, to
thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?
CURTIS I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the
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world?
GRUMIO A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine;
and therefore fire. Do thy duty, and have thy duty, for
my master and mistress are almost frozen to death.
CURTIS There’s fire ready, and therefore, good Grumio,
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the news.
GRUMIO Why, ‘Jack, boy, ho, boy!’ and as much news as
wilt thou.
CURTIS Come, you are so full of cony-catching.
GRUMIO Why, therefore, fire, for I have caught extreme
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cold. Where’s the cook? Is supper ready, the house
trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the
servingmen in their new fustian, their white
stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment
on? Be the Jacks fair within, the Jills fair without, the
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carpets laid, and everything in order?
CURTIS All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.
GRUMIO First know my horse is tired, my master and
mistress fallen out.
CURTIS How?
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GRUMIO Out of their saddles into the dirt, and thereby
hangs a tale.
CURTIS Let’s ha’t, good Grumio.
GRUMIO Lend thine ear.
CURTI
S Here.
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GRUMIO There. [Strikes him.]
CURTIS This ’tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.
GRUMIO And therefore ’tis called a sensible tale; and
this cuff was but to knock at your ear and beseech
listening. Now I begin. Imprimis, we came down a
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foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress –
CURTIS Both of one horse?
GRUMIO What’s that to thee?
CURTIS Why, a horse.
GRUMIO Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not crossed
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me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell, and
she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how
miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her
with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her
horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to
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pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed that
never prayed before, how I cried, how the horses ran
away, how her bridle was burst, how I lost my crupper,
with many things of worthy memory, which now shall
die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienced to thy
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grave.
CURTIS By this reckoning he is more shrew than she.
GRUMIO Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all
shall find when he comes home. But what talk I of
this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip,
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Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest. Let their heads be
slickly combed, their blue coats brushed, and their
garters of an indifferent knit. Let them curtsy with
their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my
master’s horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they
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all ready?
CURTIS They are.
GRUMIO Call them forth.
CURTIS Do you hear, ho? You must meet my master to
countenance my mistress.
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GRUMIO Why, she hath a face of her own.
CURTIS Who knows not that?
GRUMIO Thou, it seems, that calls for company to
countenance her.
CURTIS I call them forth to credit her.
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GRUMIO Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.
Enter four or five Servingmen.
NATHANIEL Welcome home, Grumio.
PHILIP How now, Grumio.
JOSEPH What, Grumio.
NICHOLAS Fellow Grumio.
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NATHANIEL How now, old lad.
GRUMIO Welcome, you. How now, you. What, you.
Fellow, you. And thus much for greeting. Now, my
spruce companions, is all ready, and all things neat?
NATHANIEL All things is ready. How near is our master?
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GRUMIO
E’en at hand, alighted by this. And therefore be not
– Cock’s passion, silence! I hear my master.
Enter PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA.
PETRUCHIO
Where be these knaves? What, no man at door
To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse?
Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?
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ALL SERVINGMEN Here, here sir, here sir.
PETRUCHIO Here sir, here sir, here sir, here sir!
You logger-headed and unpolish’d grooms!
What, no attendance? No regard? No duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?
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GRUMIO Here sir, as foolish as I was before.
PETRUCHIO
You peasant swain! You whoreson malt-horse drudge!
Did I not bid thee meet me in the park,
And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?
GRUMIO Nathaniel’s coat, sir, was not fully made,
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And Gabriel’s pumps were all unpink’d i’ th’ heel;
There was no link to colour Peter’s hat,
And Walter’s dagger was not come from sheathing.
There were none fine but Adam, Rafe, and Gregory,
The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;
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Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.
PETRUCHIO Go, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in.
Exeunt Servingmen.
[Sings.] Where is the life that late I led?
Where are those –
Sit down, Kate, and welcome. Food, food, food, food!
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Enter servants with supper.
Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.
Off with my boots, you rogues! You villains, when?
[Sings.] It was the friar of orders grey,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 464