Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety.

Peace, Tranio.

TRANIO (aside to Lucentio)

Well said, master. Mum, and gaze your fill.

BAPTISTA

Gentlemen, that I may soon make good

What I have said—Bianca, get you in.

And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,

For I will love thee ne’er the less, my girl.

KATHERINE A pretty peat! It is best

Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.

BIANCA

Sister, content you in my discontent.

(To Baptista) Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe.

My books and instruments shall be my company,

On them to look and practise by myself.

LUCENTIO (aside to Tranio)

Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak.

HORTENSIO

Signor Baptista, will you be so strange?

Sorry am I that our good will effects

Bianca’s grief.

GREMIO Why will you mew her up,

Signor Baptista, for this fiend of hell,

And make her bear the penance of her tongue?

BAPTIST

Gentlemen, content ye. I am resolved.

Go in, Bianca.

Exit Bianca

And for I know she taketh most delight

In music, instruments, and poetry,

Schoolmasters will I keep within my house

Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,

Or, Signor Gremio, you know any such,

Prefer them hither; for to cunning men

I will be very kind, and liberal

To mine own children in good bringing up.

And so farewell. Katherina, you may stay,

For I have more to commune with Bianca.

Exit

KATHERINE Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What, shall I be appointed hours, as though belike I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!

Exit

GREMIO You may go to the devil’s dam. Your gifts are so good here’s none will hold you. Their love is not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together and fast it fairly out. Our cake’s dough on both sides. Farewell. Yet for the love I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish him to her father.

HORTENSIO So will I, Signor Gremio. But a word, I pray. Though the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both—that we may yet again have access to our fair mistress and be happy rivals in Bianca’s love—to labour and effect one thing specially.

GREMIO What’s that, I pray?

HORTENSIO Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

GREMIO A husband?—a devil!

HORTENSIO I say a husband.

GREMIO I say a devil. Think’st thou, Hortensio, though her father be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell?

HORTENSIO Tush, Gremio. Though it pass your patience and mine to endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in the world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all faults, and money enough.

GREMIO I cannot tell, but I had as lief take her dowry with this condition: to be whipped at the high cross every morning.

HORTENSIO Faith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten apples. But come, since this bar in law makes us friends, it shall be so far forth friendly maintained till by helping Baptista’s eldest daughter to a husband we set his youngest free for a husband, and then have to’t afresh. Sweet Bianca Happy man be his dole. He that runs fastest gets the ring. How say you, Signor Gremio?

GREMIO I am agreed, and would I had given him the best horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her. Come on.

Exeunt Hortensio and Gremio. Tranio and Lucentio remain

TRANIO

I pray, sir, tell me : is it possible

That love should of a sudden take such hold?

LUCENTIO

O Tranio, till I found it to be true

I never thought it possible or likely.

But see, while idly I stood looking on

I found the effect of love in idleness,

And now in plainness do confess to thee,

That art to me as secret and as dear

As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was,

Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,

If I achieve not this young modest girl.

Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst.

Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

TRANIO

Master, it is no time to chide you now.

Affection is not rated from the heart.

If love have touched you, naught remains but so—

Redime te captum quam queas minimo.

LUCENTIO

Gramercies, lad. Go forward, this contents.

The rest will comfort, for thy counsel’s sound.

TRANIO

Master, you looked so longly on the maid

Perhaps you marked not what’s the pith of all.

LUCENTIO

O yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,

Such as the daughter of Agenor had,

That made great Jove to humble him to her hand

When with his knees he kissed the Cretan strand.

TRANIO

Saw you no more? Marked you not how her sister

Began to scold and raise up such a storm

That mortal ears might hardly endure the din ?

LUCENTIO

Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,

And with her breath she did perfume the air.

Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

TRANIO (aside)

Nay, then ’tis time to stir him from his trance.

(To Lucentio) I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,

Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it

stands:

Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd

That till the father rid his hands of her,

Master, your love must live a maid at home,

And therefore has he closely mewed her up

Because she will not be annoyed with suitors.

LUCENTIO

Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father’s he!

But art thou not advised he took some care

To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?

TRANIO

Ay, marry am I, sir, and now ’tis plotted.

LUCENTIO

I have it, Tranio.

TRANIO

Master, for my hand,

Both our inventions meet and jump in one.

LUCENTIO

Tell me thine first.

TRANIO You will be schoolmaster