That's your Luc. Tell me thine first. You will be schoolmaster, And undertake the teaching of the maid. device. Luc. It is. May it be done? Luc. Basta ; ' content thee, for I have it full. Tra. So had you need. [They exchange habits. Luc. Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves; And let me be a slave, to achieve that maid, Whose sudden sight hath thralled eye. Enter BIONDELLO. Here comes the rogue.-Sirrah, where have you been ? Bion. Where have I been? Nay, how now? where are you? my wounded 1 It is enough (Ital.). 3 Since. Master, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clotnes? Luc. Sirrah, come hither; 'tis no time to jest, I, sir, ne'er a whit. Bion. The better for him. 'Would I were so too! 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 com panies. Luc. Tranio, let's go.- If thou ask me why, Sufficeth, my reasons are both good and weighty. [Exeunt.' 1 Serv. 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? 1 Here, in the old copy, we have, “ The presenters above speak;" meaning Sly, &c., who were placed in a balcony raised at the back of the stage. After the words “Would it were done,” the marginal direction is, They sit and mark. Page. My lord, 'tis but begun. Sly. 'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady. Would 'twere done ! SCENE II. The same. Before Hortensio's House. Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO. Gru. Knock, sir ! Whom should I knock ? Is there any man has rebused your worship? Pet. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly. Gru. Knock you here, sir ? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you here, sir ? Pet. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate, And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate. Gru. My master is grown quarrelsome. "I should knock you first, And then I know after who comes by the worst. Pet. Will it not be ? ?Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll wring it; I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it. [He wrings Grumio by the ears. Gru. Help, masters, help! My master is mad. Pet. Now, knock when I bid you ; sirrah! villain ! Enter HORTENSIO. Hor. How now? what's the matter?-My old friend Grumio, and my good friend Petruchio!-How do you all at Verona! 1 Malone remarks that Grumio's pretensions to wit have a strong resemblance to Dromio's, in The Comedy of Errors; and the two plays were probably written at no great distance of time from each other. Pet. Seignior Hortensio, come you to part the fray ? Con tutto il core bene trovato, may I say. Hor. Alla nostra casa bene venuto, Gru. Nay, 'tis no matter 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 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? 3 Whom, 'would to God, I had well knocked at first; Then had not Grumio come by the worst. Pet. A senseless villain !-Good Hortensio, Gru. Knock at the gate ?-0 Heavens ! here, Rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly? And come you now with—knocking at the gate ? Pet. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you. Hor. Petruchio, patience ; I am Grumio's pledge. world, 1 Gascoigne, in his Supposes, has spelled this name correctly Petrucio ; but Shakspeare wrote it as it appears in the text, in order to teach the actors how to pronounce it. 2 i. e. what he alleges in Latin. Grumio mistakes the Italian spoken for Latin. 3 The allusion is to the old game of Bone-ace, or one-and-thirty. A pip is a spot upon a card. The old copy has it peepe. 4 In short, in a few words. And I have thrust myself into this maze, Hor. Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee, rich.—But thou’rt too much my friend, And I'll not wish thee to her. Pet. Seignior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we, Few words suffice; and, therefore, if thou know 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' Xantippe, or a worse, 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. Gru. 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 money comes withal. Hor. Petruchio, since we have stepped thus far in, I will continue that I broached in jest. I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife With wealth enough, and young, and beauteous ; Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman ; Her only fault (and that is faults enough) 1 This allusion is to a story told by Gower in the first book of his Confessio Amantis. Florent is the name of a knight who bound himself to marry a deformed hag provided she taught him the solution of a riddle on which his life depended. 2 An aglet-baby was a diminutive figure carved on an aglet or jewel. 3 The fifty diseases of a horse seems to be proverbial; of which, probably, the text is only an exaggeration. |