Pet. Why, then let's home again.-Come, sirrah, let's

away.

Kath. Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love,

stay.

Pet. Is not this well?-Come, my sweet Kate:

Better once than

never, for never too late.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Room in LUCENTIO'S House.

A Banquet set out; Enter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the Pedant, LUCENTIO, BIANCA, PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Widow. TRANIO, BIONDELLO, GRUMIO, and others attending.

Luc. At last, though long, our jarring notes agree:
And time it is, when raging war is gone

To smile at 'scapes and perils overblown.—
My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,

While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.-
Brother Petruchio,-sister Katharina,—
And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
Feast with the best, and welcome to my house:
My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;
For now we sit to chat, as well as eat.

[They sit at table.
Pet. Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!
Bap. Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.
Pet. Padua affords nothing but what is kind.

Hor. For both our sakes I would that word were true.
Pet. Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.
Wid. Then, never trust me, if I be afeard.

4 Tranio, Biondello, Grumio, and others attending.] According to the old stage-direction, "the serving-men with Tranio bring in a banquet." A banquet, as Steevens observes, properly meant what we now call a dessert, though often taken generally for a feast; and to this Lucentio refers when he says,

"My banquet is to close our stomachs up,

After our great good cheer."

5 when raging war is GONE,] The word "gone" is from the corr. fo. 1632, showing that come of the old impressions must be wrong, and that Rowe's emendation of done was a bad guess on the part of that editor. The compositor confounded "gone" and come, printing the last, when he meant to print the first.

Pet. You are very sensible, and yet you miss

I mean, Hortensio is afeard of

you.

my sense:

Wid. He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
Pet. Roundly replied.

Kath.

Mistress, how mean you that?

Wid. Thus I conceive by him.

Pet. Conceives by me!-How likes Hortensio that?
Hor. My widow says, thus she conceives her tale.

Pet. Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow. Kath. He that is giddy thinks the world turns round :— I pray you, tell me what you meant by that.

Wid. Your husband, being troubled with a shrew, Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe.

And now you know my meaning.

Kath. A very mean meaning.

Wid.

Right, I mean you.

Kath. And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.

Pet. To her, Kate!

Hor. To her, widow!

Pet. A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.

Hor. That's my office.

Pet. Spoke like an officer:-Ha' to thee, lad.

[Drinks to HORTENSIO. Bap. How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

Gre. Believe me, sir, they butt together well. Bian. Head and butt ? an hasty-witted body Would say, your head and butt were head and horn.

Vin. Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you ? Bian. Ay, but not frighted me; therefore, I'll sleep again. Pet. Nay, that you shall not: since you have begun, Have at you for a better jest or two'.

Bian. Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush, And then pursue me as you draw your bow.

You are welcome all.

[Exeunt BIANCA, KATHARINA, and Widow. Pet. She hath prevented me.-Here, signior Tranio ; This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not: Therefore, a health to all that shot and miss'd.

6 Head and butt?] Nothing has been said about "head." Perhaps we ought to read "quick-headed" two lines above, and in this line we have" hasty-witted." Otherwise, there seems no joke in Bianca's "head and butt."

7 Have at you for a BETTER jest or two.] So all the old copies, 4to. and folio; but Capell suggested "bitter jest or two."

Tra. O sir! Lucentio slipp'd me, like his greyhound,
Which runs himself, and catches for his master.

Pet. A good swift simile, but something currish.
Tra. 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
'Tis thought, your deer does hold you at a bay.
Bap. O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.
Luc. I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.
Hor. Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here?
Pet. 'A has a little gall'd me, I confess;
And, as the jest did glance away from me,
'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 several 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.

Pet. Twenty crowns!

Twenty crowns.

I'll venture so much of my hawk, or hound 10,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

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.

[Exit.

How now! what news?

The obvious error is

8 FOR assurance,] Instead of "for," the 4to. and the folio of 1623 have sir, a common misprint from mistaking the ƒ for long s. corrected in the folio, 1632.

"Several" is from the corr.

9 Let's each one send unto his SEVERAL wife,] fo. 1632, and evidently necessary to the measure, and some improvement to the sense the meaning is, let each one send severally to his wife.

10 I'll venture so much of my hawk, or hound,] So all the old copies. Most modern editors, as if objecting to Shakespeare's phraseology, have represented him to have written "on my hawk, or hound."

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 wife To come to me forthwith.

Pet.

Nay, then she must needs come.

Hor.

[Exit BIONDELLO.

O ho! entreat her!

I am afraid, sir,

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 come to me.

Hor. I know her answer.

Pet. What?

Hor. She will not.

[Exit GRUMIO.

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

Enter KATHARINA.

Bap. Now, by my holidom', 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;

1 Now, by my holidom,] It has been usual to spell this word holidame, as if it referred to the Virgin Mary; but it is from the Saxon (the Germans still use the word Heiligthum), and means holiness or sanctity: it has the same substantive termination as martyrdom, &c.

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.

[KATHARINA 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. Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?
Luc. I would, your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Cost me one 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. 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 mov'd is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty

2 Cost me one hundred crowns since supper-time.] The early copies read, "Hath cost me five hundred crowns since supper-time."

Here the sum is wrong, and the measure is marred.

Our text is that of corr. fo.

1632, where both errors are amended.