The Taming of the Shrew

Finally, at long last, we’ve reconciled our differences. Now is the time—when war is safely over—to laugh at past dangers and adventures. My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome, while I with equal affection welcome yours. Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina, and you, Hortensio, with your loving widow, you’ll find no better entertainment anywhere. All of you are welcome in my house. This last course here is for closing up the stomach after great feasting. Now everyone be seated, as this is the part where we sit and chat as well as eat.

All we do is sit and sit and eat and eat.

Yes, Padua is famous for this pleasant life, Petruchio, my son.

Padua contains nothing that isn’t pleasant.

I wish that were true for both our sakes!

Well what do you know! Hortensio fears his widow.

Me afraid of him? I don’t think so.

That’s very sensible, but you missed my sense: I meant Hortensio is afraid of you.

He who is dizzy thinks the world is spinning.

A very candid reply.

What’s that supposed to mean?

That’s what I conceive of him.

Conceives by me? How does that sit with you, Hortensio?

My widow means that her remark expressed the way she understood him.

Nice save! Kiss him for that, good widow.

“He who is dizzy thinks the world is spinning”—please, tell me what you meant by that.

Your husband, being saddled with a shrew, projects his own suffering onto my husband. And now you know my meaning.

A very nasty meaning.

My meaning is nasty, for it’s you I mean.

And I am nasty when it comes to you.

You tell her, Kate!

You tell her, widow!

I’ll bet you a hundred marks, my Kate puts her flat on her back.

Well, that’s really my job.

Well said! Here’s to you!

What do you think of these quick-witted folks, Gremio?

They certainly do like to butt heads!

A clever person would say their butting heads had horns on them.

Ah, our bride has woken up!

Yes, but not out of fear. I’ll go back to sleep now.

No, you shall not. Since you chimed in, let’s see if we can trade a caustic joke or two.

Am I the bird you’re going to shoot at now? I’ll move my bush, so you’ll have to aim at a moving target. Thank you all for coming.

Well, she got away. Signior Tranio, you also took aim at that bird, though you didn’t hit her.—So here’s a health to all who’ve shot and missed.

Oh well, sir, I was really just like a greyhound that Lucentio let off the leash: I did the running, but the catch was his.

A witty if a cynical reply.

It’s good you hunted for yourself, sir. It’s rumored that your deer holds you at bay.

Oh-ho, Petruchio! Tranio got you that time.

I thank you for that quip, good Tranio.

Fess up, fess up, didn’t that one strike home?

He’s made me a little sore, I’ll admit. But since the gibe glanced off me, ten to one it hit you both straight on.

Seriously, though, son Petruchio, I think you have the most thoroughgoing shrew of us all.

Well, I disagree. But why not put it to the test? Let’s each one send for his wife. Whichever’s is most obedient and comes most readily shall win the bet that we’ll propose.

Agreed. What’s the bet?

Twenty crowns.

Twenty crowns? That’s a bet I’d make on my hawk or my hound. I’d wager twenty times as much on my wife.

A hundred then.

Agreed.

Good! It’s a bet.

Who should begin?

I will. Biondello, go and tell your mistress to come to me.

Here I go.

Son, I’ll stake you half that Bianca comes.

I’ll have no halves. I’ll shoulder the whole bet

Well, what happened

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

What! “She’s busy and cannot come!” Is that an answer?

Yes, and a nice one at that. Pray God your wife doesn’t send you a worse one.

I’m hoping for better.

You there, Biondello, go and request that my wife come to me straight away.

Oh-ho, he requests! Why, then she’ll have to come.

I rather think, sir, that yours will not grant a request in any case.

So, where’s my wife?

She says she thinks this is a prank. She will not come. She says that you should come to her.

Worse and worse! She will not come! It’s vile, intolerable, not to be endured!—You there, Grumio, go to your mistress. Say that I command her to come to me.

I can guess her answer.

What?

She will not.

The worse for me, no doubt about it.

By all that’s holy, here comes Katherina!

You sent for me, sir? Is there something you’d like me to do for you?

Where are your sister and Hortensio’s wife?

They sit chatting by the parlor fire.

Go bring them here. If they refuse to come, get physical—use a whip if you have to, but get them out here to their husbands. Go on, I said. Bring them here straight away.

This is a miracle, if you talk of miracles.

It is. I wonder what it means.

I’ll tell you what it means. It means peace and love and a quiet life, supremacy based on reverence and profound respect, and—not to go on and on about it—everything that’s sweet and happy.

May good fortune come to you, good Petruchio! You’ve won the wager, and I will add twenty thousand crowns to what they owe you. Another dowry for another wife, for, truly, she is so transformed she’s like a completely new woman.

Wait, I will win the wager more spectacularly, going even further to demonstrate her obedience, her newly created virtue and obedience.

Look, here she comes, with your ungovernable wives in tow, like prisoners of her womanly persuasion.—Katherine, that cap of yours doesn’t look good on you. Take it off and throw it on the ground.

Lord, may I never see a day of trouble until the day I let someone treat me like that.

For shame! What kind of loyalty is this?

I wish your loyalty were as foolish. The wisdom of your loyalty, fair Bianca, has cost me a hundred crowns since dinner.

The more fool you for betting on my loyalty.

Katherine, I’d like you to lecture these headstrong women on the nature of the loyalty they owe their lords and husbands.

You must be joking. There will be no lecture.

Do it, I say. You can begin with her.

She shall not.

I say she shall.—And first begin with her.

Girls, girls! Wipe those frowns off your faces and stop rolling your eyes. This disrespectful stance toward the man who is your lord, your king, your governor tarnishes your beauty the way the frosts of winter blights the land. It mars your reputations as whirlwinds shake fair buds. And in no sense is it fitting or attractive. An angry woman is like an agitated fountain—muddy, unpleasant, lacking in beauty. And in this condition, no one—however dry or thirsty he may be—will stoop to sip or touch one drop of it. Your husband is your lord, your life, your keeper, your head, your sovereign, one who cares for you and who, for your ease and comfort, commits his body to harsh labor both on land and sea. Long, stormy nights at seas he stays awake, by day he endures cold while you lie safe and warm, secure in your beds at home. And in exchange he seeks no more from you but love, kind looks, and true obedience—too little payment for so great a debt. A woman owes her husband the same loyalty a subject owes his king. And when she is peevish and perverse, sullen, sour, and disobedient to his honest wishes, what is she but a loathsome, warlike rebel and an ungrateful traitor to her loving lord? I am ashamed that women are so foolish as to declare war when they should plead on their knees for peace, that they seek authority, supremacy, and power when they are under an obligation to serve, love, and obey. Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unfit for toil and trouble in the world, if not so that our soft qualities and our hearts should agree with our external parts? Come, come, you weak, ungovernable worms! My spirit has been as proud as each of yours, my courage as great, and my reason perhaps even better suited to bandy words back and forth and exchange frown for frown. But now I see our weapons are like straws, our strength like a straw’s weakness, and our weakness past comparison, so that we seem to be the thing we most are not. Humble your pride, then, since it’s useless, and place your hand beneath your husband’s foot. As a gesture of my loyalty, my hand is ready if he cares to use it. May it bring him comfort.

There, that’s my girl! Come on and kiss me, Kate.

Congratulations, old pal, you’ve won the bet.

It’s nice to see children playing well together.

But not so nice when women misbehave.

Come, Kate, let’s go to bed. We three are married, but you two are defeated. (to LUCENTIO) I was the one who won the wager, though you hit the white. And as the winner here I say good night.

Well, congratulations. You’ve tamed a terrible shrew.

It’s amazing, if I may say so, that she let herself be tamed.