Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,

Being all this time abandoned from your bed.

SLY

Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.

Exeunt [Lord and] attendants

Madam, undress you and come now to bed.

BARTHOLOMEW

Thrice-noble lord, let me entreat of you

To pardon me yet for a night or two,

Or if not so, until the sun be set,

For your physicians have expressly charged,

In peril to incur your former malady,

That I should yet absent me from your bed.

I hope this reason stands for my excuse.

SLY Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will therefore tarry in despite of the flesh and the blood.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGER

Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment,

Are come to play a pleasant comedy,

For so your doctors hold it very meet,

Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood,

And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.

Therefore they thought it good you hear a play

And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,

Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.

SLY

Marry, I will let them play it. Is not a comonty

A Christmas gambol, or a tumbling trick?

BARTHOLOMEW

No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.

SLY

What, household stuff?

BARTHOLOMEW

It is a kind of history.

SLY

Well, we’ll see’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my side

And let the world slip. We shall ne’er be younger.

Bartholomew sits

1.1 Flourish. Enter Lucentio and his man, Tranio

LUCENTIO

Tranio, since for the great desire I had

To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,

I am arrived fore fruitful Lombardy,

The pleasant garden of great Italy,

And by my father’s love and leave am armed

With his good will and thy good company,

My trusty servant, well approved in all,

Here let us breathe, and haply institute

A course of learning and ingenious studies.

Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,

Gave me my being, and my father first—

A merchant of great traffic through the world,

Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii.

Vincentio’s son, brought up in Florence,

It shall become to serve all hopes conceived

To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.

And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,

Virtue and that part of philosophy

Will I apply that treats of happiness

By virtue specially to be achieved.

Tell me thy mind, for I have Pisa left

And am to Padua come as he that leaves

A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,

And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

TRANIO

Mi perdonate, gentle master mine.

I am in all affected as yourself,

Glad that you thus continue your resolve

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.

Only, good master, while we do admire

This virtue and this moral discipline,

Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray,

Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks

As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.

Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,

And practise rhetoric in your common talk.

Music and poesy use to quicken you;

The mathematics and the metaphysics,

Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en.

In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

LUCENTIO

Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.

If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,

We could at once put us in readiness

And take a lodging fit to entertain

Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.

But stay a while, what company is this?

TRANIO

Master, some show to welcome us to town.

Enter Baptista with his two daughters, Katherine and Bianca; Gremio, a pantaloon; Hortensio, suitor to Bianca. Lucentio and Tranio stand by

BAPTISTA

Gentlemen, importune me no farther,

For how I firmly am resolved you know:

That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter

Before I have a husband for the elder.

If either of you both love Katherina,

Because I know you well and love you well

Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.

GREMIO

To cart her rather. She’s too rough for me.

There, there, Hortensio. Will you any wife?

KATHERINE (to Baptista)

I pray you, sir, is it your will

To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

HORTENSIO

‘Mates’, maid? How mean you that? No mates for

you

Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.

KATHERINE

I’faith, sir, you shall never need to fear.

Iwis it is not half-way to her heart,

But if it were, doubt not her care should be

To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool,

And paint your face, and use you like a fool.

HORTENSIO

From all such devils, good Lord deliver us.

GREMIO And me too, good Lord.

TRANIO (aside to Lucentio)

Husht, master, here’s some good pastime toward.

That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.

LUCENTIO (aside to Tranio)

But in the other’s silence do I see