’Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTA

O, O, Petruccio, Tranio hits you now.

LUCENTIO

I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.

HORTENSIO

Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCCIO

A has a little galled me, I confess,

And as the jest did glance away from me,

‘Tis ten to one it maimed you two outright.

BAPTISTA

Now in good sadness, son Petruccio,

I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

PETRUCCIO

Well, I say no.—And therefore, Sir Assurance,

Let’s each one send unto his 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.

HORTENSIO Content. What’s the wager?

LUCFNTIO Twenty crowns.

PETRUCCIO Twenty crowns!

I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,

But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIO A hundred, then.

HORTENSIO Content.

PETRUCCIO A match, ‘tis done.

HORTENSIO Who shall begin?

LUCENTIO That will I.

Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLO I go.

Exit

BAPTISTA

Son, I’ll be your half Bianca comes.

LUCENTIO

I’ll have no halves, I’ll bear it all myself.

Enter Biondello

How now, what news?

BIONDELLO

Sir, my mistress sends you word

That she is busy and she cannot come.

PETRUCCIO

How? She’s busy and she cannot come?

Is that an answer?

GREMlO Ay, and a kind one, too.

Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

PETRUCCIO

I hope, better.

HORTENSIO

Sirrah Biondello,

Go and entreat my wife to come to me forthwith.

Exit Biondello

PETRUCCIO

O ho, ‘entreat’ her—nay, then she must needs come.

HORTENSIO

I am afraid, sir, do what you can,

Enter Biondello

Yours will not be entreated. Now, where’s my wife?

BIONDELLO

She says you have some goodly jest in hand.

She will not come. She bids you come to her.

PETRUCCIO

Worse and worse! She will not come—O vile,

Intolerable, not to be endured!

Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress.

Say I command her come to me.

Exit Grumio

HORTENSIO

I know her answer.

PETRUCCIO

What?

HORTENSIO

She will not.

PETRUCCIO

The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

Enter Katherine

BAPTISTA

Now by my halidom, here comes Katherina.

KATHERINE (to Petruccio)

What is your will, sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCCIO

Where is your sister and Hortensio’s wife?

KATHERINE

They sit conferring by the parlour fire.

PETRUCCIO

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 Katherine

LUCENTIO

Here is a wonder, if you talk of wonders.

HORTENSIO

And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCCIO

Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life;

An aweful rule and right supremacy,

And, to be short, what not that’s sweet and happy.

BAPTISTA

Now fair befall thee, good Petruccio,

The wager thou hast won, and I will add

Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns,

Another dowry to another daughter,

For she is changed as she had never been.

PETRUCCIO

Nay, I will win my wager better yet,

And show more sign of her obedience,

Her new-built virtue and obedience.

Enter Katherine, Bianca, and the Widow

See where she comes, and brings your froward wives

As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.

Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not.

Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.

Katherine throws down her cap

WIDOW

Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh

Till I be brought to such a silly pass.

BIANCA

Fie, what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO

I would your duty were as foolish, too.

The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,

Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time.

BIANCA

The more fool you for laying on my duty.

PETRUCCIO

Katherine, I charge thee tell these headstrong women

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

WIDOW

Come, come, you’re mocking. We will have no telling.

PETRUCCIO

Come on, I say, and first begin with her.

WIDOW She shall not.

PETRUCCIO

I say she shall: and first begin with her.

KATHERINE

Fie, fie, unknit that threat’ning, 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 moved is like a fountain troubled,

Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty,

And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty

Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,

And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful labour both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,

Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, fair looks, and true obedience,

Too little payment for so great a debt.

Such duty as the subject owes the prince,

Even such a woman oweth to her husband,

And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,

And not obedient to his honest will,

What is she but a foul contending rebel,

And graceless traitor to her loving lord?

I am ashamed that women are so simple