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(IV) THE LATIN LESSON

This element (Act III, i) may have been suggested by a passage in an old play, The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, printed 1590 (Hazlitt's Dodsley's Old Plays, VI, 500).

THE DURATION OF ACTION

According to Mr. Daniel's analysis, five or six days are represented on the stage, with intervals which amount to something under a fortnight.

Day 1. Act I.

Day 2. Act II. Interval of a day or two. Petruchio proposes to go to Venice to buy apparel.

Day 3. Act III, i.

Saturday, eve of the wedding. Day 4. Act III, ii; Act IV, i. Sunday, the weddingday. Interval (?).

Day 5. Act IV, ii. Interval (?).

Day 6. Act IV, iii, iv, v, and Act V (? The second Sunday).

Possibly Acts I and II should be considered as one day. "Time, however," adds Mr. Daniel, "in this play is a very slippery element, difficult to fix in any completely consistent scheme. In the old play the whole story is knit up in the course of two days" (Trans. of New Shakespeare Society, 1877-79, p. 168).

THE TAMER TAMED

Fletcher attempted a companion picture to the Taming of the Shrew in his Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed (written before 1633); in this play we are introduced to our old friend Petruchio again, but Katharina is dead and "eke her patience," and in her place we are introduced to her successor, Maria, the "masculine" daughter of Petronius, who tries a process of taming on her own account,

aided by faithful allies, to wit, er sister Livia, her cousin and "Commander-in-Chief" Bianca, "city wives," "county wives," etc. In the end Petruchio confesses himself, in more senses than one, "born again," and the Epilogue sums up as follows:

"The Tamer's Tamed; but so, as nor the men
Can find one just cause to complain of, when
They fitly do consider, in their lives

They should not reign as tyrants o'er their wives
Nor can the women from this precedent

Insult, or triumph; it being aptly meant,
To teach both sexes due equality,

And as they stand bound to love mutually.
If this effect arising from a cause

Well laid and grounded may deserve applause,
We something more than hope our honest ends
Will keep the men, and women too, our friends.”

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

A Lord

DRAMATIS PERSONE

CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker

Hostess, Page, Players, Huntsmen and Servants

BAPTISTA, a rich gentleman of Padua

VINCENTIO, an old gentleman of Pisa

LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca

Persons in the

Induction

PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Katharina

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