Act III, Scene V — An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden
Enter Romeo and Juliet.
JULIET. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET. Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhales To be to thee this night a torchbearer And light thee on thy way to Mantua. Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.
ROMEO. Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death, I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow. Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads. I have more care to stay than will to go. Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so. How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.
JULIET. It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away. It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us. Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes. O, now I would they had chang’d voices too, Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day. O now be gone, more light and light it grows.
ROMEO. More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.
Enter Nurse.
NURSE. Madam.
JULIET. Nurse?
NURSE. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber. The day is broke, be wary, look about.
[Exit.]
JULIET. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.
ROMEO. Farewell, farewell, one kiss, and I’ll descend.
[Descends.]
JULIET. Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay husband, friend, I must hear from thee every day in the hour, For in a minute there are many days. O, by this count I shall be much in years Ere I again behold my Romeo.
ROMEO. Farewell! I will omit no opportunity That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.
JULIET. O thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?
ROMEO. I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve For sweet discourses in our time to come.
JULIET. O God! I have an ill-divining soul! Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.
ROMEO. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.
[Exit below.]
JULIET. O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle, If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune; For then, I hope thou wilt not keep him long But send him back.
LADY CAPULET. [Within.] Ho, daughter, are you up?
JULIET. Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother? Is she not down so late, or up so early? What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET. Why, how now, Juliet?
JULIET. Madam, I am not well.
LADY CAPULET. Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death? What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears? And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live. Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
JULIET. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.
LADY CAPULET. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend Which you weep for.
JULIET. Feeling so the loss, I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.
LADY CAPULET. Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.
JULIET. What villain, madam?
LADY CAPULET. That same villain Romeo.
JULIET. Villain and he be many miles asunder. God pardon him. I do, with all my heart. And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.
LADY CAPULET. That is because the traitor murderer lives.
JULIET. Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands. Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.
LADY CAPULET. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not. Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua, Where that same banish’d runagate doth live, Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram That he shall soon keep Tybalt company: And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.
JULIET. Indeed I never shall be satisfied With Romeo till I behold him—dead— Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d. Madam, if you could find out but a man To bear a poison, I would temper it, That Romeo should upon receipt thereof, Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him, To wreak the love I bore my cousin Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.
LADY CAPULET. Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man. But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.
JULIET. And joy comes well in such a needy time. What are they, I beseech your ladyship?
LADY CAPULET. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child; One who to put thee from thy heaviness, Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy, That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.
JULIET. Madam, in happy time, what day is that?
LADY CAPULET. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn The gallant, young, and noble gentleman, The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church, Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.
JULIET. Now by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too, He shall not make me there a joyful bride. I wonder at this haste, that I must wed Ere he that should be husband comes to woo. I pray you tell my lord and father, madam, I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate, Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.
LADY CAPULET. Here comes your father, tell him so yourself, And see how he will take it at your hands.
Enter Capulet and Nurse.
CAPULET. When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew; But for the sunset of my brother’s son It rains downright. How now? A conduit, girl? What, still in tears? Evermore showering? In one little body Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind. For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, Sailing in this salt flood, the winds, thy sighs, Who raging with thy tears and they with them, Without a sudden calm will overset Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife? Have you deliver’d to her our decree?
LADY CAPULET. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks. I would the fool were married to her grave.
CAPULET. Soft. Take me with you, take me with you, wife. How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks? Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest, Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?
JULIET. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have. Proud can I never be of what I hate; But thankful even for hate that is meant love.
CAPULET. How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this? Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not; And yet not proud. Mistress minion you, Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds, But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church, Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither. Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage! You tallow-face!
LADY CAPULET. Fie, fie! What, are you mad?
JULIET. Good father, I beseech you on my knees, Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
CAPULET. Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch! I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday, Or never after look me in the face. Speak not, reply not, do not answer me. My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest That God had lent us but this only child; But now I see this one is one too much, And that we have a curse in having her. Out on her, hilding.
NURSE. God in heaven bless her. You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.
CAPULET. And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue, Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.
NURSE. I speak no treason.
CAPULET. O God ye good-en!
NURSE. May not one speak?
CAPULET. Peace, you mumbling fool! Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl, For here we need it not.
LADY CAPULET. You are too hot.
CAPULET. God’s bread, it makes me mad! Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play, Alone, in company, still my care hath been To have her match’d, and having now provided A gentleman of noble parentage, Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied, Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts, Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man, And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender, To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love, I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’ But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you. Graze where you will, you shall not house with me. Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest. Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise. And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend; And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee, Nor what is mine shall never do thee good. Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.
[Exit.]
JULIET. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, That sees into the bottom of my grief? O sweet my mother, cast me not away, Delay this marriage for a month, a week, Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
LADY CAPULET. Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word. Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.
[Exit.]
JULIET. O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented? My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven. How shall that faith return again to earth, Unless that husband send it me from heaven By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me. Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems Upon so soft a subject as myself. What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy? Some comfort, Nurse.
NURSE. Faith, here it is. Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you. Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth. Then, since the case so stands as now it doth, I think it best you married with the County. O, he’s a lovely gentleman. Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart, I think you are happy in this second match, For it excels your first: or if it did not, Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were, As living here and you no use of him.
JULIET. Speakest thou from thy heart?
NURSE. And from my soul too, Or else beshrew them both.
JULIET. Amen.
NURSE. What?
JULIET. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much. Go in, and tell my lady I am gone, Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell, To make confession and to be absolv’d.
NURSE. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.
[Exit.]
JULIET. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend! Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn, Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue Which she hath prais’d him with above compare So many thousand times? Go, counsellor. Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain. I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy. If all else fail, myself have power to die.
[Exit.]
Act IV, Scene I — Friar Lawrence’s Cell
Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.
PARIS. My father Capulet will have it so; And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. You say you do not know the lady’s mind. Uneven is the course; I like it not.
PARIS. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death, And therefore have I little talk’d of love; For Venus smiles not in a house of tears. Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous That she do give her sorrow so much sway; And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage, To stop the inundation of her tears, Which, too much minded by herself alone, May be put from her by society. Now do you know the reason of this haste.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. [Aside.] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.— Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.
Enter Juliet.
PARIS. Happily met, my lady and my wife!
JULIET. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
PARIS. That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.
JULIET. What must be shall be.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. That’s a certain text.
PARIS. Come you to make confession to this father?
JULIET. To answer that, I should confess to you.
PARIS. Do not deny to him that you love me.
JULIET. I will confess to you that I love him.
PARIS. So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.
JULIET. If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back than to your face.
PARIS. Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears.
JULIET. The tears have got small victory by that; For it was bad enough before their spite.
PARIS. Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.
JULIET. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth, And what I spake, I spake it to my face.
PARIS. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.
JULIET. It may be so, for it is not mine own. Are you at leisure, holy father, now, Or shall I come to you at evening mass?
FRIAR LAWRENCE. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.— My lord, we must entreat the time alone.
PARIS. God shield I should disturb devotion!— Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye, Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.
[Exit.]
JULIET. O shut the door, and when thou hast done so, Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!
FRIAR LAWRENCE. O Juliet, I already know thy grief; It strains me past the compass of my wits. I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this County.
JULIET. Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this, Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it. If in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help, Do thou but call my resolution wise, And with this knife I’ll help it presently. God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands; And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d, Shall be the label to another deed, Or my true heart with treacherous revolt Turn to another, this shall slay them both. Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time, Give me some present counsel, or behold ’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the empire, arbitrating that Which the commission of thy years and art Could to no issue of true honour bring. Be not so long to speak. I long to die, If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope, Which craves as desperate an execution As that is desperate which we would prevent. If, rather than to marry County Paris Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself, Then is it likely thou wilt undertake A thing like death to chide away this shame, That cop’st with death himself to scape from it. And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.
JULIET. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris, From off the battlements of yonder tower, Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears; Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house, O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls. Or bid me go into a new-made grave, And hide me with a dead man in his shroud; Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble, And I will do it without fear or doubt, To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow; Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone, Let not thy Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber. Take thou this vial, being then in bed, And this distilled liquor drink thou off, When presently through all thy veins shall run A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse Shall keep his native progress, but surcease. No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest, The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall, Like death when he shuts up the day of life. Each part depriv’d of supple government, Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death. And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death Thou shalt continue two and forty hours, And then awake as from a pleasant sleep. Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead. Then as the manner of our country is, In thy best robes, uncover’d, on the bier, Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie. In the meantime, against thou shalt awake, Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift, And hither shall he come, and he and I Will watch thy waking, and that very night Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua. And this shall free thee from this present shame, If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear Abate thy valour in the acting it.
JULIET. Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear!
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.
JULIET. Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford. Farewell, dear father.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene II — Hall in Capulet’s House
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse and Servants.
CAPULET. So many guests invite as here are writ.
[Exit first Servant.]
Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.
SECOND SERVANT. You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their fingers.
CAPULET. How canst thou try them so?
SECOND SERVANT. Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers; therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.
CAPULET. Go, begone.
[Exit second Servant.]
We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time. What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?
NURSE. Ay, forsooth.
CAPULET. Well, he may chance to do some good on her. A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.
Enter Juliet.
NURSE. See where she comes from shrift with merry look.
CAPULET. How now, my headstrong. Where have you been gadding?
JULIET. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin Of disobedient opposition To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here, To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you. Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you.
CAPULET. Send for the County, go tell him of this. I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.
JULIET. I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell, And gave him what becomed love I might, Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.
CAPULET. Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up. This is as’t should be. Let me see the County. Ay, marry. Go, I say, and fetch him hither. Now afore God, this reverend holy Friar, All our whole city is much bound to him.
JULIET. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet, To help me sort such needful ornaments As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?
LADY CAPULET. No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.
CAPULET. Go, Nurse, go with her. We’ll to church tomorrow.
[Exeunt Juliet and Nurse.]
LADY CAPULET. We shall be short in our provision, ’Tis now near night.
CAPULET. Tush, I will stir about, And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife. Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her. I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone. I’ll play the housewife for this once.—What, ho!— They are all forth: well, I will walk myself To County Paris, to prepare him up Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene III — Juliet’s Chamber
Enter Juliet and Nurse.
JULIET. Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse, I pray thee leave me to myself tonight; For I have need of many orisons To move the heavens to smile upon my state, Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin.
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?
JULIET. No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries As are behoveful for our state tomorrow. So please you, let me now be left alone, And let the nurse this night sit up with you, For I am sure you have your hands full all In this so sudden business.
LADY CAPULET. Good night. Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.
[Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse.]
JULIET. Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins That almost freezes up the heat of life. I’ll call them back again to comfort me. Nurse!—What should she do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Come, vial. What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then tomorrow morning? No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.
[Laying down her dagger.]
What if it be a poison, which the Friar Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead, Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d, Because he married me before to Romeo? I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not, For he hath still been tried a holy man. How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point! Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? Or, if I live, is it not very like, The horrible conceit of death and night, Together with the terror of the place, As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, Where for this many hundred years the bones Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d, Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say, At some hours in the night spirits resort— Alack, alack, is it not like that I, So early waking, what with loathsome smells, And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad. O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, Environed with all these hideous fears, And madly play with my forefathers’ joints? And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone, As with a club, dash out my desperate brains? O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay! Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink! I drink to thee.
[Throws herself on the bed.]
Act IV, Scene IV — Hall in Capulet’s House
Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.
LADY CAPULET. Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, Nurse.
NURSE. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.
Enter Capulet.
CAPULET. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow’d, The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock. Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica; Spare not for cost.
NURSE. Go, you cot-quean, go, Get you to bed; faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow For this night’s watching.
CAPULET. No, not a whit. What! I have watch’d ere now All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.
LADY CAPULET. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time; But I will watch you from such watching now.
[Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse.]
CAPULET. A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!
Enter Servants, with spits, logs and baskets.
Now, fellow, what’s there?
FIRST SERVANT. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.
CAPULET. Make haste, make haste.
[Exit First Servant.]
—Sirrah, fetch drier logs. Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.
SECOND SERVANT. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs And never trouble Peter for the matter.
[Exit.]
CAPULET. Mass and well said; a merry whoreson, ha. Thou shalt be loggerhead.—Good faith, ’tis day. The County will be here with music straight, For so he said he would. I hear him near.
[Play music.]
Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, Nurse, I say!
Re-enter Nurse.
Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up. I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste, Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already. Make haste I say.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene V — Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed
Enter Nurse.
NURSE. Mistress! What, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she. Why, lamb, why, lady, fie, you slug-abed! Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweetheart! Why, bride! What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now. Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant, The County Paris hath set up his rest That you shall rest but little. God forgive me! Marry and amen. How sound is she asleep! I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam! Ay, let the County take you in your bed, He’ll fright you up, i’faith. Will it not be? What, dress’d, and in your clothes, and down again? I must needs wake you. Lady! Lady! Lady! Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead! O, well-a-day that ever I was born. Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!
Enter Lady Capulet.
LADY CAPULET. What noise is here?
NURSE. O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET. What is the matter?
NURSE. Look, look! O heavy day!
LADY CAPULET. O me, O me! My child, my only life. Revive, look up, or I will die with thee. Help, help! Call help.
Enter Capulet.
CAPULET. For shame, bring Juliet forth, her lord is come.
NURSE. She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s dead; alack the day!
LADY CAPULET. Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!
CAPULET. Ha! Let me see her. Out alas! She’s cold, Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff. Life and these lips have long been separated. Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
NURSE. O lamentable day!
LADY CAPULET. O woful time!
CAPULET. Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail, Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.
Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris with Musicians.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?
CAPULET. Ready to go, but never to return. O son, the night before thy wedding day Hath death lain with thy bride. There she lies, Flower as she was, deflowered by him. Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir; My daughter he hath wedded. I will die And leave him all; life, living, all is death’s.
PARIS. Have I thought long to see this morning’s face, And doth it give me such a sight as this?
LADY CAPULET. Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day. Most miserable hour that e’er time saw In lasting labour of his pilgrimage. But one, poor one, one poor and loving child, But one thing to rejoice and solace in, And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight.
NURSE. O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day. Most lamentable day, most woeful day That ever, ever, I did yet behold! O day, O day, O day, O hateful day. Never was seen so black a day as this. O woeful day, O woeful day.
PARIS. Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain. Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d, By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown. O love! O life! Not life, but love in death!
CAPULET. Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d. Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now To murder, murder our solemnity? O child! O child! My soul, and not my child, Dead art thou. Alack, my child is dead, And with my child my joys are buried.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Peace, ho, for shame. Confusion’s cure lives not In these confusions. Heaven and yourself Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all, And all the better is it for the maid. Your part in her you could not keep from death, But heaven keeps his part in eternal life. The most you sought was her promotion, For ’twas your heaven she should be advanc’d, And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself? O, in this love, you love your child so ill That you run mad, seeing that she is well. She’s not well married that lives married long, But she’s best married that dies married young. Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary On this fair corse, and, as the custom is, And in her best array bear her to church; For though fond nature bids us all lament, Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.
CAPULET. All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral: Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change; Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse, And all things change them to the contrary.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him, And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepare To follow this fair corse unto her grave. The heavens do lower upon you for some ill; Move them no more by crossing their high will.
[Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar.]
FIRST MUSICIAN. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.
NURSE. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up, For well you know this is a pitiful case.
FIRST MUSICIAN. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.
[Exit Nurse.]
Enter Peter.
PETER. Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’ ‘Heart’s ease’, O, and you will have me live, play ‘Heart’s ease.’
FIRST MUSICIAN. Why ‘Heart’s ease’?
PETER. O musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is full’. O play me some merry dump to comfort me.
FIRST MUSICIAN. Not a dump we, ’tis no time to play now.
PETER. You will not then?
FIRST MUSICIAN. No.
PETER. I will then give it you soundly.
FIRST MUSICIAN. What will you give us?
PETER. No money, on my faith, but the gleek! I will give you the minstrel.
FIRST MUSICIAN. Then will I give you the serving-creature.
PETER. Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets. I’ll re you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?
FIRST MUSICIAN. And you re us and fa us, you note us.
SECOND MUSICIAN. Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.
PETER. Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men. ‘When griping griefs the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound’— Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’? What say you, Simon Catling?
FIRST MUSICIAN. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.
PETER. Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?
SECOND MUSICIAN. I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.
PETER. Prates too! What say you, James Soundpost?
THIRD MUSICIAN. Faith, I know not what to say.
PETER. O, I cry you mercy, you are the singer. I will say for you. It is ‘music with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for sounding. ‘Then music with her silver sound With speedy help doth lend redress.’
[Exit.]
FIRST MUSICIAN. What a pestilent knave is this same!
SECOND MUSICIAN. Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene I — Mantua. A Street
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep, My dreams presage some joyful news at hand. My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne; And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,— Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!— And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips, That I reviv’d, and was an emperor. Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d, When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.
Enter Balthasar.
News from Verona! How now, Balthasar? Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar? How doth my lady? Is my father well? How fares my Juliet? That I ask again; For nothing can be ill if she be well.
BALTHASAR. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill. Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument, And her immortal part with angels lives. I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault, And presently took post to tell it you. O pardon me for bringing these ill news, Since you did leave it for my office, sir.
ROMEO. Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars! Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper, And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.
BALTHASAR. I do beseech you sir, have patience. Your looks are pale and wild, and do import Some misadventure.
ROMEO. Tush, thou art deceiv’d. Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do. Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?
BALTHASAR. No, my good lord.
ROMEO. No matter. Get thee gone, And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight.
[Exit Balthasar.]
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight. Let’s see for means. O mischief thou art swift To enter in the thoughts of desperate men. I do remember an apothecary,— And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of simples, meagre were his looks, Sharp misery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff’d, and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes, Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said, And if a man did need a poison now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him. O, this same thought did but forerun my need, And this same needy man must sell it me. As I remember, this should be the house. Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut. What, ho! Apothecary!
Enter Apothecary.
APOTHECARY. Who calls so loud?
ROMEO. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor. Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins, That the life-weary taker may fall dead, And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath As violently as hasty powder fir’d Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.
APOTHECARY. Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law Is death to any he that utters them.
ROMEO. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness, And fear’st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes, Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back. The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law; The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it and take this.
APOTHECARY. My poverty, but not my will consents.
ROMEO. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
APOTHECARY. Put this in any liquid thing you will And drink it off; and, if you had the strength Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.
ROMEO. There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh. Come, cordial and not poison, go with me To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene II — Friar Lawrence’s Cell
Enter Friar John.
FRIAR JOHN. Holy Franciscan Friar! Brother, ho!
Enter Friar Lawrence.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. This same should be the voice of Friar John. Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo? Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
FRIAR JOHN. Going to find a barefoot brother out, One of our order, to associate me, Here in this city visiting the sick, And finding him, the searchers of the town, Suspecting that we both were in a house Where the infectious pestilence did reign, Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth, So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
FRIAR JOHN. I could not send it,—here it is again,— Nor get a messenger to bring it thee, So fearful were they of infection.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood, The letter was not nice, but full of charge, Of dear import, and the neglecting it May do much danger. Friar John, go hence, Get me an iron crow and bring it straight Unto my cell.
FRIAR JOHN. Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.
[Exit.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Now must I to the monument alone. Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake. She will beshrew me much that Romeo Hath had no notice of these accidents; But I will write again to Mantua, And keep her at my cell till Romeo come. Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb.
[Exit.]
Act V, Scene III — A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets
Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.
PARIS. Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof. Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Under yond yew tree lay thee all along, Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground; So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread, Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves, But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me, As signal that thou hear’st something approach. Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
PAGE. [Aside.] I am almost afraid to stand alone Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.
[Retires.]
PARIS. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew. O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones, Which with sweet water nightly I will dew, Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans. The obsequies that I for thee will keep, Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
[The Page whistles.]
The boy gives warning something doth approach. What cursed foot wanders this way tonight, To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite? What, with a torch! Muffle me, night, awhile.
[Retires.]
Enter Romeo and Balthasar with a torch, mattock, &c.
ROMEO. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter; early in the morning See thou deliver it to my lord and father. Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee, Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof And do not interrupt me in my course. Why I descend into this bed of death Is partly to behold my lady’s face, But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger A precious ring, a ring that I must use In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone. But if thou jealous dost return to pry In what I further shall intend to do, By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint, And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs. The time and my intents are savage-wild; More fierce and more inexorable far Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
BALTHASAR. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
ROMEO. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that. Live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.
BALTHASAR. For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout. His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.
[Retires]
ROMEO. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth, Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
[Breaking open the door of the monument.]
And in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food.
PARIS. This is that banish’d haughty Montague That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief, It is supposed, the fair creature died,— And here is come to do some villainous shame To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.
[Advances.]
Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague. Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death? Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee. Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.
ROMEO. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither. Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man. Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone; Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth, Put not another sin upon my head By urging me to fury. O be gone. By heaven I love thee better than myself; For I come hither arm’d against myself. Stay not, be gone, live, and hereafter say, A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.
PARIS. I do defy thy conjuration, And apprehend thee for a felon here.
ROMEO. Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!
[They fight.]
PAGE. O lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.
[Exit.]
PARIS. O, I am slain! [Falls.] If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
[Dies.]
ROMEO. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face. Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris! What said my man, when my betossed soul Did not attend him as we rode? I think He told me Paris should have married Juliet. Said he not so? Or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet, To think it was so? O, give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book. I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave. A grave? O no, a lantern, slaught’red youth, For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light. Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.
[Laying Paris in the monument.]
How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry! Which their keepers call A lightning before death. O, how may I Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife, Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. Thou art not conquer’d. Beauty’s ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death’s pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favour can I do to thee Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous; And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that I still will stay with thee, And never from this palace of dim night Depart again. Here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest; And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death. Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide. Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark. Here’s to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[Dies.]
Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar Lawrence, with a lantern, crow, and spade.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Saint Francis be my speed. How oft tonight Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who’s there? Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?
BALTHASAR. Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern, It burneth in the Capels’ monument.
BALTHASAR. It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master, One that you love.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Who is it?
BALTHASAR. Romeo.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. How long hath he been there?
BALTHASAR. Full half an hour.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Go with me to the vault.
BALTHASAR. I dare not, sir; My master knows not but I am gone hence, And fearfully did menace me with death If I did stay to look on his intents.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me. O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.
BALTHASAR. As I did sleep under this yew tree here, I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. Romeo! [Advances.] Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains The stony entrance of this sepulchre? What mean these masterless and gory swords To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?
[Enters the monument.]
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too? And steep’d in blood? Ah what an unkind hour Is guilty of this lamentable chance? The lady stirs.
[Juliet wakes and stirs.]
JULIET. O comfortable Friar, where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
[Noise within.]
FRIAR LAWRENCE. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep. A greater power than we can contradict Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away. Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead; And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee Among a sisterhood of holy nuns. Stay not to question, for the watch is coming. Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.
JULIET. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
[Exit Friar Lawrence.]
What’s here? A cup clos’d in my true love’s hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. O churl. Drink all, and left no friendly drop To help me after? I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, To make me die with a restorative.
[Kisses him.]
Thy lips are warm!
FIRST WATCH. [Within.] Lead, boy. Which way?
JULIET. Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger.
[Snatching Romeo’s dagger.]
This is thy sheath. [stabs herself] There rest, and let me die.
[Falls on Romeo’s body and dies.]
Enter Watch with the Page of Paris.
PAGE. This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.
FIRST WATCH. The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard. Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach.
[Exeunt some of the Watch.]
Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain, And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead, Who here hath lain this two days buried. Go tell the Prince; run to the Capulets. Raise up the Montagues, some others search.
[Exeunt others of the Watch.]
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie, But the true ground of all these piteous woes We cannot without circumstance descry.
Re-enter some of the Watch with Balthasar.
SECOND WATCH. Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard.
FIRST WATCH. Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.
Re-enter others of the Watch with Friar Lawrence.
THIRD WATCH. Here is a Friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps. We took this mattock and this spade from him As he was coming from this churchyard side.
FIRST WATCH. A great suspicion. Stay the Friar too.
Enter the Prince and Attendants.
PRINCE. What misadventure is so early up, That calls our person from our morning’s rest?
Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and others.
CAPULET. What should it be that they so shriek abroad?
LADY CAPULET. O the people in the street cry Romeo, Some Juliet, and some Paris, and all run With open outcry toward our monument.
PRINCE. What fear is this which startles in our ears?
FIRST WATCH. Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain, And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before, Warm and new kill’d.
PRINCE. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.
FIRST WATCH. Here is a Friar, and slaughter’d Romeo’s man, With instruments upon them fit to open These dead men’s tombs.
CAPULET. O heaven! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds! This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house Is empty on the back of Montague, And it mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.
LADY CAPULET. O me! This sight of death is as a bell That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
Enter Montague and others.
PRINCE. Come, Montague, for thou art early up, To see thy son and heir more early down.
MONTAGUE. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight. Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath. What further woe conspires against mine age?
PRINCE. Look, and thou shalt see.
MONTAGUE. O thou untaught! What manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave?
PRINCE. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, Till we can clear these ambiguities, And know their spring, their head, their true descent, And then will I be general of your woes, And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear, And let mischance be slave to patience. Bring forth the parties of suspicion.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place Doth make against me, of this direful murder. And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned and myself excus’d.
PRINCE. Then say at once what thou dost know in this.
FRIAR LAWRENCE. I will be brief, for my short date of breath Is not so long as is a tedious tale. Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet, And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife. I married them; and their stol’n marriage day Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city; For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin’d. You, to remove that siege of grief from her, Betroth’d, and would have married her perforce To County Paris. Then comes she to me, And with wild looks, bid me devise some means To rid her from this second marriage, Or in my cell there would she kill herself. Then gave I her, so tutored by my art, A sleeping potion, which so took effect As I intended, for it wrought on her The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night To help to take her from her borrow’d grave, Being the time the potion’s force should cease. But he which bore my letter, Friar John, Was stay’d by accident; and yesternight Return’d my letter back. Then all alone At the prefixed hour of her waking Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault, Meaning to keep her closely at my cell Till I conveniently could send to Romeo. But when I came, some minute ere the time Of her awaking, here untimely lay The noble Paris and true Romeo dead. She wakes; and I entreated her come forth And bear this work of heaven with patience. But then a noise did scare me from the tomb; And she, too desperate, would not go with me, But, as it seems, did violence on herself. All this I know; and to the marriage Her Nurse is privy. And if ought in this Miscarried by my fault, let my old life Be sacrific’d, some hour before his time, Unto the rigour of severest law.
PRINCE. We still have known thee for a holy man. Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?
BALTHASAR. I brought my master news of Juliet’s death, And then in post he came from Mantua To this same place, to this same monument. This letter he early bid me give his father, And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault, If I departed not, and left him there.
PRINCE. Give me the letter, I will look on it. Where is the County’s Page that rais’d the watch? Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
PAGE. He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave, And bid me stand aloof, and so I did. Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb, And by and by my master drew on him, And then I ran away to call the watch.
PRINCE. This letter doth make good the Friar’s words, Their course of love, the tidings of her death. And here he writes that he did buy a poison Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague, See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love! And I, for winking at your discords too, Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.
CAPULET. O brother Montague, give me thy hand. This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more Can I demand.
MONTAGUE. But I can give thee more, For I will raise her statue in pure gold, That whiles Verona by that name is known, There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet.
CAPULET. As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie, Poor sacrifices of our enmity.
PRINCE. A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things. Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished, For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
[Exeunt.]
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Dramatis Personæ
Persons in the Induction A LORD CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker HOSTESS PAGE PLAYERS HUNTSMEN SERVANTS
BAPTISTA MINOLA, a rich gentleman of Padua VINCENTIO, an old gentleman of Pisa LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio; in love with Bianca PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona; suitor to Katherina
Suitors to Bianca GREMIO HORTENSIO
Servants to Lucentio TRANIO BIONDELLO
Servants to Petruchio GRUMIO CURTIS
PEDANT, set up to personate Vincentio
Daughters to Baptista KATHERINA, the shrew BIANCA
WIDOW
Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and Petruchio
SCENE: Sometimes in Padua, and sometimes in Petruchio’s house in the country.
Induction, Scene I — Before an alehouse on a heath
Enter Hostess and Sly
SLY. I’ll pheeze you, in faith.
HOSTESS. A pair of stocks, you rogue!
SLY. Y’are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues; look in the chronicles: we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, paucas pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa!
HOSTESS. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?
SLY. No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed and warm thee.
HOSTESS. I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.
[Exit]
SLY. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I’ll answer him by law. I’ll not budge an inch, boy: let him come, and kindly.
[Lies down on the ground, and falls asleep.]
Horns winded. Enter a Lord from hunting, with Huntsmen and Servants.
LORD. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds; Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss’d, And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth’d brach. Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault? I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
FIRST HUNTSMAN. Why, Bellman is as good as he, my lord; He cried upon it at the merest loss, And twice today pick’d out the dullest scent; Trust me, I take him for the better dog.
LORD. Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet, I would esteem him worth a dozen such. But sup them well, and look unto them all; Tomorrow I intend to hunt again.
FIRST HUNTSMAN. I will, my lord.
LORD. [Sees Sly.] What’s here? One dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
SECOND HUNTSMAN. He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm’d with ale, This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.
LORD. O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies! Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image! Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man. What think you, if he were convey’d to bed, Wrapp’d in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers, A most delicious banquet by his bed, And brave attendants near him when he wakes, Would not the beggar then forget himself?
FIRST HUNTSMAN. Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.
SECOND HUNTSMAN. It would seem strange unto him when he wak’d.
LORD. Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy. Then take him up, and manage well the jest. Carry him gently to my fairest chamber, And hang it round with all my wanton pictures; Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters, And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet. Procure me music ready when he wakes, To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound; And if he chance to speak, be ready straight, And with a low submissive reverence Say ‘What is it your honour will command?’ Let one attend him with a silver basin Full of rose-water and bestrew’d with flowers; Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper, And say ‘Will’t please your lordship cool your hands?’ Someone be ready with a costly suit, And ask him what apparel he will wear; Another tell him of his hounds and horse, And that his lady mourns at his disease. Persuade him that he hath been lunatic; And, when he says he is—say that he dreams, For he is nothing but a mighty lord. This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs; It will be pastime passing excellent, If it be husbanded with modesty.
FIRST HUNTSMAN. My lord, I warrant you we will play our part, As he shall think by our true diligence, He is no less than what we say he is.
LORD. Take him up gently, and to bed with him, And each one to his office when he wakes.
[Sly is borne out. A trumpet sounds.]
Sirrah, go see what trumpet ’tis that sounds.
[Exit Servant.]
Belike some noble gentleman that means, Travelling some journey, to repose him here.
Re-enter Servant.
How now! who is it?
SERVANT. An it please your honour, players That offer service to your lordship.
LORD. Bid them come near.
Enter Players.
Now, fellows, you are welcome.
PLAYERS. We thank your honour.
LORD. Do you intend to stay with me tonight?
PLAYER. So please your lordship to accept our duty.
LORD. With all my heart. This fellow I remember Since once he play’d a farmer’s eldest son; ’Twas where you woo’d the gentlewoman so well. I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part Was aptly fitted and naturally perform’d.
PLAYER. I think ’twas Soto that your honour means.
LORD. ’Tis very true; thou didst it excellent. Well, you are come to me in happy time, The rather for I have some sport in hand Wherein your cunning can assist me much. There is a lord will hear you play tonight; But I am doubtful of your modesties, Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,— For yet his honour never heard a play,— You break into some merry passion And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs, If you should smile, he grows impatient.
PLAYER. Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves, Were he the veriest antick in the world.
LORD. Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery, And give them friendly welcome everyone: Let them want nothing that my house affords.
[Exit one with the Players.]
Sirrah, go you to Barthol’mew my page, And see him dress’d in all suits like a lady; That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber, And call him ‘madam,’ do him obeisance. Tell him from me—as he will win my love,— He bear himself with honourable action, Such as he hath observ’d in noble ladies Unto their lords, by them accomplished; Such duty to the drunkard let him do, With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy, And say ‘What is’t your honour will command, Wherein your lady and your humble wife May show her duty and make known her love?’ And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses, And with declining head into his bosom, Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy’d To see her noble lord restor’d to health, Who for this seven years hath esteemed him No better than a poor and loathsome beggar. And if the boy have not a woman’s gift To rain a shower of commanded tears, An onion will do well for such a shift, Which, in a napkin being close convey’d, Shall in despite enforce a watery eye. See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst; Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.
[Exit Servant.]
I know the boy will well usurp the grace, Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman; I long to hear him call the drunkard husband; And how my men will stay themselves from laughter When they do homage to this simple peasant. I’ll in to counsel them; haply my presence May well abate the over-merry spleen, Which otherwise would grow into extremes.
[Exeunt.]
Induction, Scene II — A bedchamber in the Lord’s house
Sly is discovered in a rich nightgown, with Attendants: some with apparel, basin, ewer, and other appurtenances; and Lord, dressed like a servant.
SLY. For God’s sake! a pot of small ale.
FIRST SERVANT. Will’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack?
SECOND SERVANT. Will’t please your honour taste of these conserves?
THIRD SERVANT. What raiment will your honour wear today?
SLY. I am Christophero Sly; call not me honour nor lordship. I ne’er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef. Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet: nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the over-leather.
LORD. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour! O, that a mighty man of such descent, Of such possessions, and so high esteem, Should be infused with so foul a spirit!
SLY. What! would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of Burton-heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught. Here’s—
THIRD SERVANT. O! this it is that makes your lady mourn.
SECOND SERVANT. O! this is it that makes your servants droop.
LORD. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house, As beaten hence by your strange lunacy. O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth, Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment, And banish hence these abject lowly dreams. Look how thy servants do attend on thee, Each in his office ready at thy beck: Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,
[Music.]
And twenty caged nightingales do sing: Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed On purpose trimm’d up for Semiramis. Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground: Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp’d, Their harness studded all with gold and pearl. Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar Above the morning lark: or wilt thou hunt? Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
FIRST SERVANT. Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.
SECOND SERVANT. Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight Adonis painted by a running brook, And Cytherea all in sedges hid, Which seem to move and wanton with her breath Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
LORD. We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid And how she was beguiled and surpris’d, As lively painted as the deed was done.
THIRD SERVANT. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood, Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep, So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
LORD. Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord: Thou hast a lady far more beautiful Than any woman in this waning age.
FIRST SERVANT. And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face, She was the fairest creature in the world; And yet she is inferior to none.
SLY. Am I a lord? and have I such a lady? Or do I dream? Or have I dream’d till now? I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak; I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things: Upon my life, I am a lord indeed; And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly. Well, bring our lady hither to our sight; And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale.
SECOND SERVANT. Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?
[Servants present a ewer, basin and napkin.]
O, how we joy to see your wit restor’d! O, that once more you knew but what you are! These fifteen years you have been in a dream, Or, when you wak’d, so wak’d as if you slept.
SLY. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap. But did I never speak of all that time?
FIRST SERVANT. O! yes, my lord, but very idle words; For though you lay here in this goodly chamber, Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door, And rail upon the hostess of the house, And say you would present her at the leet, Because she brought stone jugs and no seal’d quarts. Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
SLY. Ay, the woman’s maid of the house.
THIRD SERVANT. Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid, Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up, As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece, And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell; And twenty more such names and men as these, Which never were, nor no man ever saw.
SLY. Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!
ALL. Amen.
Enter the Page, as a lady, with Attendants.
SLY. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.
PAGE. How fares my noble lord?
SLY. Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough. Where is my wife?
PAGE. Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her?
SLY. Are you my wife, and will not call me husband? My men should call me lord: I am your goodman.
PAGE. My husband and my lord, my lord and husband; I am your wife in all obedience.
SLY. I know it well. What must I call her?
LORD. Madam.
SLY. Alice madam, or Joan madam?
LORD. Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.
SLY. Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d And slept above some fifteen year or more.
PAGE. Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me, Being all this time abandon’d from your bed.
SLY. ’Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone. Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.
PAGE. 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 charg’d, 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 congeal’d 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 commonty a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?
PAGE. No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.
SLY. What! household stuff?
PAGE. 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.
Act I, Scene I — Padua. A public place
Flourish. Enter Lucentio and Tranio.
LUCENTIO. Tranio, since for the great desire I had To see fair Padua, nursery of arts, I am arriv’d for fruitful Lombardy, The pleasant garden of great Italy, And by my father’s love and leave am arm’d With his good will and thy good company, My trusty servant well approv’d 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 conceiv’d, 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 achiev’d. 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 perdonato, 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 abjur’d. 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 awhile; what company is this?
TRANIO. Master, some show to welcome us to town.
[Lucentio and Tranio stand aside.]
Enter Baptista, Katherina, Bianca, Gremio and Hortensio.
BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, importune me no farther, For how I firmly am resolv’d 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?
KATHERINA. [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.
KATHERINA. I’ faith, sir, you shall never need to fear; I wis 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-legg’d 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. Husht, master! Here’s some good pastime toward: That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.
LUCENTIO. But in the other’s silence do I see Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety. Peace, Tranio!
TRANIO. 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.
KATHERINA. A pretty peat! it is best put finger in the eye, and she knew why.
BIANCA. Sister, content you in my discontent. Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe: My books and instruments shall be my company, On them to look, and practise by myself.
LUCENTIO. Hark, Tranio! thou mayst hear Minerva speak.
HORTENSIO. Signior Baptista, will you be so strange? Sorry am I that our good will effects Bianca’s grief.
GREMIO. Why will you mew her up, Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell, And make her bear the penance of her tongue?
BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv’d. 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, Signior 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.]
KATHERINA. 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, Signior 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. Thinkest 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, and 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 whipp’d 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, Signior 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 Gremio and Hortensio.]
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 touch’d you, nought 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 look’d so longly on the maid. Perhaps you mark’d 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 kiss’d the Cretan strand.
TRANIO. Saw you no more? mark’d 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. Nay, then, ’tis time to stir him from his trance. 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 mew’d her up, Because she will not be annoy’d with suitors.
LUCENTIO. Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father’s he! But art thou not advis’d 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, And undertake the teaching of the maid: That’s your device.
LUCENTIO. It is: may it be done?
TRANIO. Not possible; for who shall bear your part And be in Padua here Vincentio’s son; Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends; Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?
LUCENTIO. Basta, content thee, for I have it full. We have not yet been seen in any house, Nor can we be distinguish’d by our faces For man or master: then it follows thus: Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead, Keep house and port and servants, as I should; I will some other be; some Florentine, Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa. ’Tis hatch’d, and shall be so: Tranio, at once Uncase thee; take my colour’d hat and cloak. When Biondello comes, he waits on thee; But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.
[They exchange habits]
TRANIO. So had you need. In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is, And I am tied to be obedient; For so your father charg’d me at our parting, ‘Be serviceable to my son,’ quoth he, Although I think ’twas in another sense: I am content to be Lucentio, Because so well I love Lucentio.
LUCENTIO. Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves; And let me be a slave, to achieve that maid Whose sudden sight hath thrall’d my wounded eye.
Enter Biondello.
Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?
BIONDELLO. Where have I been? Nay, how now! where are you? Master, has my fellow Tranio stol’n your clothes? Or you stol’n his? or both? Pray, what’s the news?
LUCENTIO. Sirrah, come hither: ’tis no time to jest, And therefore frame your manners to the time. Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life, Puts my apparel and my count’nance on, And I for my escape have put on his; For in a quarrel since I came ashore I kill’d a man, and fear I was descried. Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes, While I make way from hence to save my life. You understand me?
BIONDELLO. I, sir! Ne’er a whit.
LUCENTIO. And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth: Tranio is changed to Lucentio.
BIONDELLO. The better for him: would I were so too!
TRANIO. So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after, That Lucentio indeed had Baptista’s youngest daughter. But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master’s, I advise You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies: When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio; But in all places else your master, Lucentio.
LUCENTIO. Tranio, let’s go. One thing more rests, that thyself execute, To make one among these wooers: if thou ask me why, Sufficeth my reasons are both good and weighty.
[Exeunt.]
[The Presenters above speak.]
FIRST SERVANT. My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.
SLY. Yes, by Saint Anne, I do. A good matter, surely: comes there any more of it?
PAGE. My lord, ’tis but begun.
SLY. ’Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady: would ’twere done!
[They sit and mark.]
Act I, Scene II — Padua. Before Hortensio’s house
Enter Petruchio and his man Grumio.
PETRUCHIO. Verona, for a while I take my leave, To see my friends in Padua; but of all My best beloved and approved friend, Hortensio; and I trow this is his house. Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.
GRUMIO. Knock, sir? Whom should I knock? Is there any man has rebused your worship?
PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.
GRUMIO. Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you here, sir?
PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate; And rap me well, or I’ll knock your knave’s pate.
GRUMIO. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first, And then I know after who comes by the worst.
PETRUCHIO. Will it not be? Faith, sirrah, and you’ll not knock, I’ll ring it; I’ll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.
[He wrings Grumio by the ears.]
GRUMIO. Help, masters, help! my master is mad.
PETRUCHIO. Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!
Enter Hortensio.
HORTENSIO. How now! what’s the matter? My old friend Grumio! and my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?
PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray? Con tutto il cuore ben trovato, may I say.
HORTENSIO. Alla nostra casa ben venuto; molto honorato signor mio Petruchio. Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound this quarrel.
GRUMIO. Nay, ’tis no matter, sir, what he ’leges in Latin. If this be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I see, two-and-thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had well knock’d at first, then had not Grumio come by the worst.
PETRUCHIO. A senseless villain! Good Hortensio, I bade the rascal knock upon your gate, And could not get him for my heart to do it.
GRUMIO. Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these words plain: ‘Sirrah knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly’? And come you now with ‘knocking at the gate’?
PETRUCHIO. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.
HORTENSIO. Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio’s pledge; Why, this’s a heavy chance ’twixt him and you, Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio. And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?
PETRUCHIO. Such wind as scatters young men through the world To seek their fortunes farther than at home, Where small experience grows. But in a few, Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me: Antonio, my father, is deceas’d, And I have thrust myself into this maze, Haply to wive and thrive as best I may; Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home, And so am come abroad to see the world.
HORTENSIO. Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour’d wife? Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel; And yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich, And very rich: but th’art too much my friend, And I’ll not wish thee to her.
PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, ’twixt such friends as we Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife, As wealth is burden of my wooing dance, Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love, As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd As Socrates’ Xanthippe or a worse, She moves me not, or not removes, at least, Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough As are the swelling Adriatic seas: I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua.
GRUMIO. Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is: why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne’er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two-and-fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.
HORTENSIO. Petruchio, since we are stepp’d thus far in, I will continue that I broach’d in jest. I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife With wealth enough, and young and beauteous; Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman: Her only fault,—and that is faults enough,— Is, that she is intolerable curst, And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure, That, were my state far worser than it is, I would not wed her for a mine of gold.
PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, peace! thou know’st not gold’s effect: Tell me her father’s name, and ’tis enough; For I will board her, though she chide as loud As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.
HORTENSIO. Her father is Baptista Minola, An affable and courteous gentleman; Her name is Katherina Minola, Renown’d in Padua for her scolding tongue.
PETRUCHIO. I know her father, though I know not her; And he knew my deceased father well. I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her; And therefore let me be thus bold with you, To give you over at this first encounter, Unless you will accompany me thither.
GRUMIO. I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O’ my word, and she knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding would do little good upon him. She may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so; why, that’s nothing; and he begin once, he’ll rail in his rope-tricks. I’ll tell you what, sir, and she stand him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and so disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.
HORTENSIO. Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee, For in Baptista’s keep my treasure is: He hath the jewel of my life in hold, His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca, And her withholds from me and other more, Suitors to her and rivals in my love; Supposing it a thing impossible, For those defects I have before rehears’d, That ever Katherina will be woo’d: Therefore this order hath Baptista ta’en, That none shall have access unto Bianca Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.
GRUMIO. Katherine the curst! A title for a maid of all titles the worst.
HORTENSIO. Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace, And offer me disguis’d in sober robes, To old Baptista as a schoolmaster Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca; That so I may, by this device at least Have leave and leisure to make love to her, And unsuspected court her by herself.
GRUMIO. Here’s no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks lay their heads together!
Enter Gremio and Lucentio disguised, with books under his arm.
Master, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?
HORTENSIO. Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love. Petruchio, stand by awhile.
GRUMIO. A proper stripling, and an amorous!
GREMIO. O! very well; I have perus’d the note. Hark you, sir; I’ll have them very fairly bound: All books of love, see that at any hand, And see you read no other lectures to her. You understand me. Over and beside Signior Baptista’s liberality, I’ll mend it with a largess. Take your papers too, And let me have them very well perfum’d; For she is sweeter than perfume itself To whom they go to. What will you read to her?
LUCENTIO. Whate’er I read to her, I’ll plead for you, As for my patron, stand you so assur’d, As firmly as yourself were still in place; Yea, and perhaps with more successful words Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.
GREMIO. O! this learning, what a thing it is.
GRUMIO. O! this woodcock, what an ass it is.
PETRUCHIO. Peace, sirrah!
HORTENSIO. Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio!
GREMIO. And you are well met, Signior Hortensio. Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola. I promis’d to enquire carefully About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca; And by good fortune I have lighted well On this young man; for learning and behaviour Fit for her turn, well read in poetry And other books, good ones, I warrant ye.
HORTENSIO. ’Tis well; and I have met a gentleman Hath promis’d me to help me to another, A fine musician to instruct our mistress: So shall I no whit be behind in duty To fair Bianca, so belov’d of me.
GREMIO. Belov’d of me, and that my deeds shall prove.
GRUMIO. [Aside.] And that his bags shall prove.
HORTENSIO. Gremio, ’tis now no time to vent our love: Listen to me, and if you speak me fair, I’ll tell you news indifferent good for either. Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met, Upon agreement from us to his liking, Will undertake to woo curst Katherine; Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.
GREMIO. So said, so done, is well. Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?
PETRUCHIO. I know she is an irksome brawling scold; If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.
GREMIO. No, say’st me so, friend? What countryman?
PETRUCHIO. Born in Verona, old Antonio’s son. My father dead, my fortune lives for me; And I do hope good days and long to see.
GREMIO. O sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange! But if you have a stomach, to’t a God’s name; You shall have me assisting you in all. But will you woo this wild-cat?
PETRUCHIO. Will I live?
GRUMIO. Will he woo her? Ay, or I’ll hang her.
PETRUCHIO. Why came I hither but to that intent? Think you a little din can daunt mine ears? Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puff’d up with winds, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud ’larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets’ clang? And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue, That gives not half so great a blow to hear As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire? Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.
GRUMIO. [Aside] For he fears none.
GREMIO. Hortensio, hark: This gentleman is happily arriv’d, My mind presumes, for his own good and yours.
HORTENSIO. I promis’d we would be contributors, And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe’er.
GREMIO. And so we will, provided that he win her.
GRUMIO. I would I were as sure of a good dinner.
Enter Tranio brave, and Biondello.
TRANIO. Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold, Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?
BIONDELLO. He that has the two fair daughters; is’t he you mean?
TRANIO. Even he, Biondello!
GREMIO. Hark you, sir, you mean not her to—
TRANIO. Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?
PETRUCHIO. Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.
TRANIO. I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let’s away.
LUCENTIO. [Aside] Well begun, Tranio.
HORTENSIO. Sir, a word ere you go. Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?
TRANIO. And if I be, sir, is it any offence?
GREMIO. No; if without more words you will get you hence.
TRANIO. Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free For me as for you?
GREMIO. But so is not she.
TRANIO. For what reason, I beseech you?
GREMIO. For this reason, if you’ll know, That she’s the choice love of Signior Gremio.
HORTENSIO. That she’s the chosen of Signior Hortensio.
TRANIO. Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen, Do me this right; hear me with patience. Baptista is a noble gentleman, To whom my father is not all unknown; And were his daughter fairer than she is, She may more suitors have, and me for one. Fair Leda’s daughter had a thousand wooers; Then well one more may fair Bianca have; And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one, Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.
GREMIO. What, this gentleman will out-talk us all.
LUCENTIO. Sir, give him head; I know he’ll prove a jade.
PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, to what end are all these words?
HORTENSIO. Sir, let me be so bold as ask you, Did you yet ever see Baptista’s daughter?
TRANIO. No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two, The one as famous for a scolding tongue As is the other for beauteous modesty.
PETRUCHIO. Sir, sir, the first’s for me; let her go by.
GREMIO. Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules, And let it be more than Alcides’ twelve.
PETRUCHIO. Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth: The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for, Her father keeps from all access of suitors, And will not promise her to any man Until the elder sister first be wed; The younger then is free, and not before.
TRANIO. If it be so, sir, that you are the man Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest; And if you break the ice, and do this feat, Achieve the elder, set the younger free For our access, whose hap shall be to have her Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.
HORTENSIO. Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive; And since you do profess to be a suitor, You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman, To whom we all rest generally beholding.
TRANIO. Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof, Please ye we may contrive this afternoon, And quaff carouses to our mistress’ health; And do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
GRUMIO, BIONDELLO. O excellent motion! Fellows, let’s be gone.
HORTENSIO. The motion’s good indeed, and be it so:— Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.
[Exeunt.]