Taming of the Shrew

[Guru]

LUCENTIO


I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

How now! what news?

 

[Guru]

BIONDELLO


Sir, my mistress sends you word
That she is busy and she cannot come.

 

[Guru]

PETRUCHIO


How! she is busy and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?

 

[Guru]

GREMIO


Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

 

[Guru]

PETRUCHIO


I hope better.

 

[Guru]

HORTENSIO


Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.

Exit BIONDELLO

 

[Guru]

PETRUCHIO


O, ho! entreat her!
Nay, then she must needs come.

 

[Guru]

HORTENSIO


I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

Now, where's my wife?

 

[Guru]

BIONDELLO


She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come: she bids you come to her.

 

[Guru]

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

 

[Guru]

HORTENSIO


I know her answer.

 

[Guru]

PETRUCHIO


What?

 

[Guru]

HORTENSIO


She will not.

 

[Guru]

PETRUCHIO


The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

 

[Guru]

BAPTISTA


Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!

Re-enter KATARINA

 

[Guru]

KATHARINA


What is your will, sir, that you send for me?

 

[Guru]

PETRUCHIO


Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?

 

[Guru]

KATHARINA


They sit conferring by the parlor fire.

 

[Guru]

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

 

[Guru]

LUCENTIO


Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

 

[Guru]

HORTENSIO


And so it is: I wonder what it bodes.

 

[Guru]

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?

 

[Guru]

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.

 

[Guru]

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.

 

[Guru]

Widow


Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!