Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on
Baptista and Petruchio.

SCENE, sometimes in Padua ; sometimes at Petruchio s House in the Country.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

INDUCTION.

SCENE I. Before an Alehouse on a Heath.

Enter Hostess and SLY.

Sly. I'LL pheese' you, in faith.
Host. 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! 3

This word, variously spelt, feize, feaze, fease, fese, feese, vease, and veze, occurs in several old writers. As in Ben Jonson's Alchemist, Act v. sc. 3: "Come, will you quarrel? I will feize you, sirrah;" in a note upon which Mr. Gifford, a West-of-England man, says that in that part of the country the word means, to beat, chastise, or humble." This accords with what Fuller says in his Worthies of Dorsetshire: "Bishop Turbervil recovered some lost lands, which Bishop Voysey had vezed;" and in a note upon vezed he explains it to mean, "driven away, in the dialect of the West." Likewise in Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil: "Feaze away the drone bees ;" and again: "We are touz'd, and from Italy fear'd." And Skinner says, that " "feuse, or feag, is to lash, to beat with rods." We have the word again in Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. sc. 3: "An a' be proud with me, I'll pheese his pride: let me go to him."

H.

2 Knight says, "The tinker was right in boasting the antiquity of his family, though he did not precisely recollect the name of the Conqueror." Doubtless the name is from the same original as our words sly and sleight. So that there have been Slys ever since there began to be skilful, cunning men. Among "the names of the principal actors in all these plays," mentioned in Vol. I. page xvi., we have William Slye. The name is said to have been common in the Poet's native town.

H.

3 Sessa is for the Spanish Cessu; meaning, cease, be quiet.

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.

1 Serv. Say thou wilt course, thy greyhounds are as swift

As breathed stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.

2 Serv. 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.

3 Serv. 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.

1 Serv. And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee,

Like envious floods, o'erran 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 Christopher Sly. -
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o'the smallest ale.

2 Serv. Will't please your mightiness to wash your hands?

[Servants present an 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?

1 Serv. 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.

3 Serv. Why, sir, you know no house, nor no such maid,

Nor nc such men as you have reckon'd up,

According to some old authorities, Sly here uses a very lady. like imprecation. Thus Cooper : By my fay, used only of

66

women." It is merely a diminutive of by my faith.

7 That is, at the Court Leet, where it was usual to present such matters, as appears from Kitchen on Courts: "Also if tiplers sell by cups and dishes, or measures sealed or not sealed, is in quirable"

As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps o' the Green,
And Peter Turf, 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.

Sly. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.

Enter the Page, as a lady, with Attendants. 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:

Lord. Madam.

What must I call her?

Sly. Al'ce madam, or Joan madam ?

Lord. Madam, and nothing else: so lords call

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

Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.

8 Blackstone proposes to read, "old John Naps o'the Green. Probably there is an allusion to some place in Warwickshire, then known by the name of Greece."

H.