Taming of the Shrew

SLY


I thank thee: thou shalt not lose by it.

Enter the Page as a lady, with attendants
 
SLY


Marry, I fare well for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?
 
SLY


Are you my wife and will not call me husband?
My men should call me 'lord:' I am your goodman.
 
Page


My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.
 
Lord


'Madam,' and nothing else: so lords
call ladies.
 
SLY


Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd
And slept above some fifteen year or more.
 
Page


Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.
 
This is certainly one way to get your post count up. 30 seconds apiece...OMG, it's going to still take forever.

Great play though. I like the trip they took and poor Kate's great hunger. The wrap up was pretty good too.
 
SLY


'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you and come now to bed.
 
Page


Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two,
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charged,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
 
SLY


Ay, it stands so that I may hardly
tarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into
my dreams again: I will therefore tarry in
despite of the flesh and the blood.

Enter a Messenger
 
Messenger


Your honour's players, heating your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
 
SLY


Marry, I will, let them play it. Is not a
comondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?
 
Page


No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.
 
SLY


Well, well see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side
and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.

Flourish
 
ACT I
SCENE I. Padua. A public place.



Enter LUCENTIO and his man TRANIO
 
LUCENTIO


Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy;
And by my father's love and leave am arm'd
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant, well approved in all,
Here let us breathe and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa renown'd for grave citizens
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincetino come of Bentivolii.
Vincetino's son brought up in Florence
It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achieved.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come, as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.
 
TRANIO


Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle's cheques
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en:
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
 
Back
Top