Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (100 page)

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.

KATHARINA (cont.)

Such duty as the 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;

KATHARINA (cont.)

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,

KATHARINA (cont.)

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.