Luc. Pet. Twenty crowns! Twenty crowns. I'll venture so much on my hawk, or hound, Bap. Son, I will be your half, Bianca comes. 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. Hor. Sirrah, Biondello, go, and entreat my wife Pet. [Exit BION. O, ho! entreat her! Nay, then she must needs come. Hor. I am afraid, sir, Do what you can, yours 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 come to me. Hor. I know her answer. [Exit GRU. "What Slie? o wondrous! hath he laine heere all night? "Ile wake him; I thinke he 's starved by this, "But that his belly was so stufft with ale: "What now Slie! awake for shame."-&c. Steevens. Pet. Hor. What? 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 KATH. 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, And awful rule, and right supremacy; And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy. 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 yours 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. Fy! 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 crowns3 since supper-time. 2 She will not come.] I have added the word-come, to complete the measure, which was here defective; as indeed it is, almost irremediably, in several parts of the present scene. Steevens. 3 man hundred crowns —】 Old copy-five hundred. Cord Bian. The more fool you, for laying on my duty. women What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. Pet. Come on, I say; and first begin with her. Pet. I say, she shall;-and first begin with her. A woman mov'd, is like a fountain troubled, And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, reeted by Mr. Pope. In the MS. from which our author's plays were printed, probably numbers were always expressed in figures, which has been the occasion of many mistakes in the early edi. tions. Malone. 4 as frosts bite the meads;] The old copy reads-frosts do bite. The correction was made by the editor of the second folio. Malone. To offer war, where they should kneel for peace; But that our soft conditions, and our hearts, My hand is ready, may it do him ease. Pet. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss me, Kate. 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: 8 We three are married, but you two are sped. [To Luc. And, being a winner, God give you good night! 5 [Exeunt PET. and KATH. our soft conditions,] The gentle qualities of our minds. Malone. So, in King Henry V: "my tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth." Steevens. 6 which we least are.] The old copy erroneously prolongs this line by reading-which we indeed least are. Steevens. 7 Then vail your stomachs,] i. e. abate your pride, your spirit. So, in King Henry IV, P. I: 8 "Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame you two are sped.] i. e. the fate of you both is decided; for you have wives who exhibit early proofs of disobedience. 9 Steevens. though you hit the white ;] To hit the white is a phrase Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst shrew.1 So. [Exeunt.2 borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it alludes to the name, Bianca, or white. Johnson. So, in Feltham's Answer to Ben Jonson's Ode at the end of his New Inn: "As oft you've wanted brains Again, in Sir Aston Cockayn's Poems, 1658: "And as an expert archer hits the white." Malone. 1 shrew.] I suppose our author design'd this word to be sounded 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. 2 Exeunt.] 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 "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. the players gone?- -Am I not a lord? 66 66 Tap. Yea, marry, but thou hadst best get thee home, for your wife will curse you for dreaming here all night. 66. 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 Shakspeare, I have sunk into the notes, that they may be preserved, as they seem to 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 Shakspeare'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 Shakspeare? 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 |