Bianca
Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I’ll sleep again.
Petruchio
Nay, that you shall not: since you have begun,
Have at you for a bitter jest or two!
Bianca
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;
And then pursue me as you draw your bow.
You are welcome all.
Exeunt Bianca, Katharina, and Widow
Petruchio
She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio.
This bird you aim’d at, though you hit her not;
Therefore a health to all that shot and miss’d.
Tranio
O, sir, Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself and catches for his master.
Petruchio
A good swift simile, but something currish.
Tranio
’Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
’Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.
Baptista
O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.
Lucentio
I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.
Hortensio
Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here?
Petruchio
A’ has a little gall’d me, I confess;
And, as the jest did glance away from me,
’Tis ten to one it maim’d you two outright.
Baptista
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.
Petruchio
Well, I say no: and therefore for assurance
Let’s each one send unto his wife;
And he whose wife is most obedient
To come at first when he doth send for her,
Shall win the wager which we will propose.
Hortensio
Content. What is the wager?
Lucentio
Twenty crowns.
Petruchio
Twenty crowns!
I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.
Lucentio
A hundred then.
Hortensio
Content.
Petruchio
A match! ’tis done.
Hortensio
Who shall begin?
Lucentio
That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.
Biondello
I go.
Exit
Baptista
Son, I’ll be your half, Bianca comes.
Lucentio
I’ll have no halves; I’ll bear it all myself.
Re-enter Biondello
How now! what news?
Biondello
Sir, my mistress sends you word
That she is busy and she cannot come.
Petruchio
How! she is busy and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?
Gremio
Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.
Petruchio
I hope better.
Hortensio
Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.
Exit Biondello
Petruchio
O, ho! entreat her!
Nay, then she must needs come.
Hortensio
I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.
Re-enter Biondello
Now, where’s my wife?
Biondello
She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come: she bids you come to her.
Petruchio
Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endured!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;
Say, I command her to come to me.
Exit Grumio
Hortensio
I know her answer.
Petruchio
What?
Hortensio
She will not.
Petruchio
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.
Baptista
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!
Re-enter Katharina
Katharina
What is your will, sir, that you send for me?
Petruchio
Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?
Katharina
They sit conferring by the parlor fire.
Petruchio
Go fetch them hither: if they deny to come.
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.
Exit Katharina
Lucentio
Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
Hortensio
And so it is: I wonder what it bodes.
Petruchio
Marry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,
And awful rule and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not, that’s sweet and happy?
Baptista
Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is changed, as she had never been.
Petruchio
Nay, I will win my wager better yet
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.
See where she comes and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.
Re-enter Katharina, with Bianca and Widow
Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot.
Widow
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!
Bianca
Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?
Lucentio
I would your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.
Bianca
The more fool you, for laying on my duty.
Petruchio
Katharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.
Widow
Come, come, you’re mocking: we will have no telling.
Petruchio
Come on, I say; and first begin with her.
Widow
She shall not.
Petruchio
I say she shall: and first begin with her.
Katharina
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as t
he subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.
Petruchio
Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.
Lucentio
Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha’t.
Vincentio
’Tis a good hearing when children are toward.
Lucentio
But a harsh hearing when women are froward.
Petruchio
Come, Kate, we’ll to bed.
We three are married, but you two are sped.
To Lucentio
’Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;
And, being a winner, God give you good night!
Exeunt Petruchio and Katharina
Hortensio
Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.
Lucentio
’Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.
Exeunt
Twelfth Night
or, What You Will
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
ACT I
SCENE I. DUKE ORSINO’S PALACE.
SCENE II. THE SEA-COAST.
SCENE III. OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE IV. DUKE ORSINO’S PALACE.
SCENE V. OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
ACT II
SCENE I. THE SEA-COAST.
SCENE II. A STREET.
SCENE III. OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE IV. DUKE ORSINO’S PALACE.
SCENE V. OLIVIA’S GARDEN.
ACT III
SCENE I. OLIVIA’S GARDEN.
SCENE II. OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE III. A STREET.
SCENE IV. OLIVIA’S GARDEN.
ACT IV
SCENE I. BEFORE OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE II. OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE III. OLIVIA’S GARDEN.
ACT V
SCENE I. BEFORE OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
Orsino, Duke of Illyria.
Sebastian, brother to Viola.
Antonio, a sea captain, friend to Sebastian.
A Sea Captain, friend to Viola.
Valentine and Curio, gentlemen attending on the Duke.
Sir Toby Belch, uncle to Olivia.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Malvolio, steward to Olivia.
Fabian and Feste, a Clown, servants to Olivia.
Olivia.
Viola.
Maria, Olivia's woman.
Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and other Attendants.
Scene: A city in Illyria, and the sea-coast near it.
ACT I
SCENE I. DUKE ORSINO’S PALACE.
Enter Duke Orsino, Curio, and other Lords; Musicians attending
Duke Orsino
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
Curio
Will you go hunt, my lord?
Duke Orsino
What, Curio?
Curio
The hart.
Duke Orsino
Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence!
That instant was I turn’d into a hart;
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E’er since pursue me.
Enter Valentine
How now! what news from her?
Valentine
So please my lord, I might not be admitted;
But from her handmaid do return this answer:
The element itself, till seven years’ heat,
Shall not behold her face at ample view;
But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine: all this to season
A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh
And lasting in her sad remembrance.
Duke Orsino
O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill’d the flock of all affections else
That live in her; when liver, brain and heart,
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill’d
Her sweet perfections with one self king!
Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:
Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.
Exeunt
SCENE II. THE SEA-COAST.
Enter Viola, a Captain, and Sailors
Viola
What country, friends, is this?
Captain
This is Illyria, lady.
Viola
And what should I do in Illyria?
My brother he is in Elysium.
Perchance he is not drown’d: what think you, sailors?
Captain
It is perchance that you yourself were saved.
Viola
O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.
Captain
True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,
Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
When you and those poor number saved with you
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself,
Courage and hope both teaching him the practise,
To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
So long as I could see.
Viola
For saying so, there’s gold:
Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
The like of him. Know’st thou this country?
Captain
Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born
Not three
hours’ travel from this very place.
Viola
Who governs here?
Captain
A noble duke, in nature as in name.
Viola
What is the name?
Captain
Orsino.
Viola
Orsino! I have heard my father name him:
He was a bachelor then.
Captain
And so is now, or was so very late;
For but a month ago I went from hence,
And then ’twas fresh in murmur,— as, you know,
What great ones do the less will prattle of,—
That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.
Viola
What’s she?
Captain
A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count
That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her
In the protection of his son, her brother,
Who shortly also died: for whose dear love,
They say, she hath abjured the company
And sight of men.
Viola
O that I served that lady
And might not be delivered to the world,
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is!
Captain
That were hard to compass;
Because she will admit no kind of suit,
No, not the duke’s.
Viola
There is a fair behavior in thee, captain;
And though that nature with a beauteous wall
Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character.
I prithee, and I’ll pay thee bounteously,
Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
For such disguise as haply shall become
The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke:
Thou shall present me as an eunuch to him:
It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing
And speak to him in many sorts of music
That will allow me very worth his service.
What else may hap to time I will commit;
Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.
Captain
Be you his eunuch, and your mute I’ll be:
When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.
Viola
I thank thee: lead me on.
Exeunt
SCENE III. OLIVIA’S HOUSE.
Enter Sir Toby Belch and Maria
Sir Toby Belch
What a plague means my niece, to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care’s an enemy to life.
Maria
By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o’ nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
Sir Toby Belch
Why, let her except, before excepted.
Maria
Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits of order.
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