'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright

Bap. Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,

I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

Pet. Well, I say-no: and therefore, for assurance, Let's each one send unto his wife;

And he, whose wife is most obedient

To come at first when he doth send for her,
Shall win the wager which we will propose.
Hor. Content :-
:-
What is the wager?
Luc. Twenty crowns.

Pet. Twenty crowns!

I'll venture so much on my hawk, or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

Luc. A hundred then.

Hor. Content.

Pet. A match; 'tis done.

Hor. Who shall begin?

Luc. That will I.-Go,

Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

Bion. I go.

Bap. Son, I will be your half, Bianca comes.
Luc. I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.

Re-enter BIOndello.

-How now! what news?

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

Pet. How! she is busy, and she cannot come!

Is that an answer?

Gre. Ay, and a kind one too:

Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

Pet. I hope, better.

Hor. Sirrah, Biondello, go, and entreat my

To come to me forthwith.

Pet. O, ho! entreat her!

Nay, then she must needs come.

Hor. I am afraid, sir,

wife

[Exit.

[Exit BIONDELLO

Do what you can, your's will not be entreated.

Re-enter BIOndello.

Now where's my wife?

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

Pet. Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,

Intolerable, not to be endur'd!—
Sirrah, Grumio, go to your mistress;
Say, I command her to come to me.

[Exit GRUM.

Hor. I know her answer.

Pet. What?

Hor. She will not come.

Pet. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.
Enter KATHARINA.

Bap. Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!
Kath. What is your will, sir, that you send for me?
Pet. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?
Kath. They sit conferring by the parlour fire.
Pet. 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

Luc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
Hor. And so it is; I wonder what it bodes ?
Pet. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy;

And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy.
Bap. 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 chang'd, as she had never been.
Pet. Nay, I will win my wager better yet;
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.

Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow.
See, where she comes; and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.-

Katharine, that cap of your's becomes you not;
Off with that bauble, throw it under foot.

[KATH. pulls off her cap, and throws it down Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh, Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

Bian. Fye! what a foolish duty call you this?
Luc. I would, your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.
Bian. The more fool you, for laying on my duty.

Pet. Katharine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong

women

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

Wid. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling.

Pet. Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

Wid. She shall not.

Pet. I say, she shall ;-and first begin with her.
Kath. Fye! fye! unknit that threat'ning unkind brow;
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty, as frost bites the meads;
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds
And in no sense is meet, or amiable.

A woman mov'd 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,
While 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.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such, a woman oweth to her husband:
And, when she's 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 asham'd, 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:
But now, I see our lances are but straws;

Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,―
That seeming to be most, which we least are
Then veil your stomachs,' for it is no boot;
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.

Pet. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss me,

Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.
Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toward.
Luc. But a harsh hearing, when women are froward.
Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to-bed :—

We three are married, but you two are sped."
Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white ;"

.7

[TO LUCENTIO.

And, being a winner, God give you good-night!

[Exe. PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst

shrew.

Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so. [Exeunt.

[5] i. e. abate your pride, your spirit. STEEVENS.

[6] i. e. the fate of you both is decided; for you have wives who exhibit early proofs of disobedience. STEEVENS.

[7] To hit the white is a phrase borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it alludes to the name, Bianca, or white. "JOHNSON.

[8] As this was meant for a rhyming couplet, it should be observed that anciently the word-shrew was pronounced as if it had been written-shrow. Thus, in Mr. Lodge's Illustrations of English History, Vol. II. p. 164, Burghley calls Lord Shrewsbury-Shrowsbury. See, also, the same work, Vol. II. p. 168-9.

STEEVENS.

[9] At the conclusion of this piece, Mr. Pope continued his insertions from the old play, as follows:

• Enter two Servants, bearing Sly in his own apparel, and leaving him on the stage. Then enter a Tapster.

"Sly. [awaking.] Sim, give's some more wine.-What, all the players gone? Am I not a lord?

"Tap. A lord, with a murrain ?-Come, art thou drunk still?

"Sly. Who's this? Tapster!-Oh, I have had the bravest dream that ever thou heard'st in all thy life.

"Tap. Yea, marry, but thou hadst best get thee home, for your wife will curse you for dreaming here all night.

"Sly. Will she? I know how to tame a shrew. I dreamt upon it all this night, and thou hast wak'd me out of the best dream that ever I had. But I'll to my wife, and tame her too, if she anger me."

These passages, which have been hitherto printed as part of the work of Shakesbeare, I have sunk into the notes, that they may be preserved, as they seem be

necessary to the integrity of the piece, though they really compose no part of it, being not published in the folio, 1623. Mr. Pope, however, has quoted them with a degree of inaccuracy which would have deserved censure, had they been of greater consequence than they are. The players delivered down this comedy, among the rest, as one of Shakespeare's own; and its intrinsic merit bears sufficient evidence to the propriety of their decision.

May I add a few reasons why I neither believe the former comedy of The Taming of the Shrew, 1607, nor the old play of King John, in two Parts, to have been the work of Shakespeare? He generally followed every novel or history from whence he took his plots, as closely as he could; and is so often indebted to these originals for his very thoughts and expressions, that we may fairly pronounce him not to have been above borrowing, to spare himself the labour of invention. It is therefore probable, that both these plays, (like that of King Henry V. in which Oldcastle is introduced,) were the unsuccessful performances of contemporary players. Shakespeare saw they were meanly written, and yet that their plans were such as would furnish incidents for a better dramatist. He therefore might lazily adopt the order of their scenes, still writing the dialogue anew, and inserting little more from either piece, than a few lines which he might think worth pre serving, or was too much in haste to alter. It is no uncommon thing in the literary world, to see the track of others followed by those who would never have given themselves the trouble to mark out one of their own. STEEVENS.