Complete Plays, The (412 page)

Enter Tailor

Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;
Lay forth the gown.

Enter Haberdasher

What news with you, sir?

Haberdasher

Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.

Petruchio

Why, this was moulded on a porringer;
A velvet dish: fie, fie! ’tis lewd and filthy:
Why, ’tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap:
Away with it! come, let me have a bigger.

Katharina

I’ll have no bigger: this doth fit the time,
And gentlewomen wear such caps as these

Petruchio

When you are gentle, you shall have one too,
And not till then.

Hortensio

[Aside]
 
That will not be in haste.

Katharina

Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;
And speak I will; I am no child, no babe:
Your betters have endured me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart concealing it will break,
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

Petruchio

Why, thou say’st true; it is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie:
I love thee well, in that thou likest it not.

Katharina

Love me or love me not, I like the cap;
And it I will have, or I will have none.

Exit Haberdasher

Petruchio

Thy gown? why, ay: come, tailor, let us see’t.
O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?
What’s this? a sleeve? ’tis like a demi-cannon:
What, up and down, carved like an apple-tart?
Here’s snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber’s shop:
Why, what, i’ devil’s name, tailor, call’st thou this?

Hortensio

[Aside]
 
I see she’s like to have neither cap nor gown.

Tailor

You bid me make it orderly and well,
According to the fashion and the time.

Petruchio

Marry, and did; but if you be remember’d,
I did not bid you mar it to the time.
Go, hop me over every kennel home,
For you shall hop without my custom, sir:
I’ll none of it: hence! make your best of it.

Katharina

I never saw a better-fashion’d gown,
More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable:
Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.

Petruchio

Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.

Tailor

She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.

Petruchio

O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble,
Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!
Braved in mine own house with a skein of thread?
Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;
Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou livest!
I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr’d her gown.

Tailor

Your worship is deceived; the gown is made
Just as my master had direction:
Grumio gave order how it should be done.

Grumio

I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.

Tailor

But how did you desire it should be made?

Grumio

Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

Tailor

But did you not request to have it cut?

Grumio

Thou hast faced many things.

Tailor

I have.

Grumio

Face not me: thou hast braved many men; brave not me; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.

Tailor

Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify

Petruchio

Read it.

Grumio

The note lies in’s throat, if he say I said so.

Tailor

[Reads]
 
‘Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown:’

Grumio

Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread: I said a gown.

Petruchio

Proceed.

Tailor

[Reads]
 
‘With a small compassed cape:’

Grumio

I confess the cape.

Tailor

[Reads]
 
‘With a trunk sleeve:’

Grumio

I confess two sleeves.

Tailor

[Reads]
 
‘The sleeves curiously cut.’

Petruchio

Ay, there’s the villany.

Grumio

Error i’ the bill, sir; error i’ the bill. I commanded the sleeves should be cut out and sewed up again; and that I’ll prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

Tailor

This is true that I say: an I had thee in place where, thou shouldst know it.

Grumio

I am for thee straight: take thou the bill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.

Hortensio

God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no odds.

Petruchio

Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.

Grumio

You are i’ the right, sir: ’tis for my mistress.

Petruchio

Go, take it up unto thy master’s use.

Grumio

Villain, not for thy life: take up my mistress’ gown for thy master’s use!

Petruchio

Why, sir, what’s your conceit in that?

Grumio

O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:
Take up my mistress’ gown to his master’s use!
O, fie, fie, fie!

Petruchio

[Aside]
 
Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.
Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.

Hortensio

Tailor, I’ll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow:
Take no unkindness of his hasty words:
Away! I say; commend me to thy master.

Exit Tailor

Petruchio

Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father’s
Even in these honest mean habiliments:
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;
For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his fathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
O, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.
If thou account’st it shame. lay it on me;
And therefore frolic: we will hence forthwith,
To feast and sport us at thy father’s house.
Go, call my men, and let us straight to him;
And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot
Let’s see; I think ’tis now some seven o’clock,
And well we may come there by dinner-time.

Katharina

I dare assure you, sir, ’tis almost two;
And ’twill be supper-time ere you come there.

Petruchio

It shall be seven ere I go to horse:
Look, what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it. Sirs, let’t alone:
I will not go to-day; and ere I do,
It shall be what o’clock I say it is.

Hortensio

[Aside]
 
Why, so this gallant will command the sun.

Exeunt

S
CENE
IV. P
ADUA
. B
EFORE
B
APTISTA
’
S
HOUSE
.

Enter Tranio, and the Pedant dressed like Vincentio

Tranio

Sir, this is the house: please it you that I call?

Pedant

Ay, what else? and but I be deceived
Signior Baptista may remember me,
Near twenty years ago, in Genoa,
Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.

Tranio

’Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,
With such austerity as ’longeth to a father.

Pedant

I warrant you.

Enter Biondello

But, sir, here comes your boy;
’Twere good he were school’d.

Tranio

Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,
Now do your duty throughly, I advise you:
Imagine ’twere the right Vincentio.

Biondello

Tut, fear not me.

Tranio

But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?

Biondello

I told him that your father was at Venice,
And that you look’d for him this day in Padua.

Tranio

Thou’rt a tall fellow: hold thee that to drink.
Here comes Baptista: set your countenance, sir.

Enter Baptista and Lucentio

Signior Baptista, you are happily met.

To the Pedant

Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of:
I pray you stand good father to me now,
Give me Bianca for my patrimony.

Pedant

Soft son!
Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua
To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio
Made me acquainted with a weighty cause
Of love between your daughter and himself:
And, for the good report I hear of you
And for the love he beareth to your daughter
And she to him, to stay him not too long,
I am content, in a good father’s care,
To have him match’d; and if you please to like
No worse than I, upon some agreement
Me shall you find ready and willing
With one consent to have her so bestow’d;
For curious I cannot be with you,
Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

Baptista

Sir, pardon me in what I have to say:
Your plainness and your shortness please me well.
Right true it is, your son Lucentio here
Doth love my daughter and she loveth him,
Or both dissemble deeply their affections:
And therefore, if you say no more than this,
That like a father you will deal with him
And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,
The match is made, and all is done:
Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

Tranio

I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best
We be affied and such assurance ta’en
As shall with either part’s agreement stand?

Baptista

Not in my house, Lucentio; for, you know,
Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants:
Besides, old Gremio is hearkening still;
And happily we might be interrupted.

Tranio

Then at my lodging, an it like you:
There doth my father lie; and there, this night,
We’ll pass the business privately and well.
Send for your daughter by your servant here:
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.
The worst is this, that, at so slender warning,
You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.

Baptista

It likes me well. Biondello, hie you home,
And bid Bianca make her ready straight;
And, if you will, tell what hath happened,
Lucentio’s father is arrived in Padua,
And how she’s like to be Lucentio’s wife.

Biondello

I pray the gods she may with all my heart!

Tranio

Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.

Exit Biondello

Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?
Welcome! one mess is like to be your cheer:
Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.

Baptista

I follow you.

Exeunt Tranio, Pedant, and Baptista

Re-enter Biondello

Biondello

Cambio!

Lucentio

What sayest thou, Biondello?

Biondello

You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?

Lucentio

Biondello, what of that?

Biondello

Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind, to expound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.

Lucentio

I pray thee, moralize them.

Biondello

Then thus. Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving father of a deceitful son.

Lucentio

And what of him?

Biondello

His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.

Lucentio

And then?

Biondello

The old priest of Saint Luke’s church is at your command at all hours.

Lucentio

And what of all this?

Biondello

I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her, ‘cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:’ to the church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.

Lucentio

Hearest thou, Biondello?

Biondello

I cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir: and so, adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint Luke’s, to bid the priest be ready to come against you come with your appendix.

Exit

Lucentio

I may, and will, if she be so contented:
She will be pleased; then wherefore should I doubt?
Hap what hap may, I’ll roundly go about her:
It shall go hard if Cambio go without her.

Exit

S
CENE
V. A
PUBLIC
ROAD
.

Enter Petruchio, Katharina, Hortensio, and Servants

Petruchio

Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!