Hor.

[Exit Grumio.

What?

She will not. Pet. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end. Enter Katharina.

Bap. Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina! Kath. What is your will, sir, that you send for me? Pet. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife? Kath. They sit conferring by the parlour fire. Pet. Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to come, Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands: Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

[Exit Katharina.
Luc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
Hor. And so it is; I wonder what it bodes.
Pet. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy.

Bap. Now fair befal thee, good Petrucio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns!
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is chang'd, as she had never been.
Pet. Nay, I will win my wager better yet;
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.

Re-enter Katharina, with Bianca and Widow.

See, where she comes; and brings your froward
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion. [wives
Katharine, that cap of yours becomes you not;
Off with that bauble, throw it under foot.
[Katharina pulls off her cap, and throws it down.
Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

Bian. Fye! what a foolish duty call you this? Luc. I would, your duty were as foolish too : The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,

Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.
Bian. The more fool you, for laying on my duty.
Pet. Katharine, I charge thee, tell these head-
strong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.
Wid. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have
no telling.

Pet. Come on, I say; and first begin with her.
Wid. She shall not.

Pet. I say, she shall ;-and first begin with her.

Kath. Fye, fye! unknit that threat'ning unkind brow;

And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor :

It blots thy beauty, as frosts do bite the meads;
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds ;
And in no sense is meet or amiable.

A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance: commits his body
To painful labour, both by sea and land;
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands,
But love, fair looks, and true obedience,-
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband:
And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she, but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am asham'd, that women are so simple
To offer war, where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil, and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions, and our hearts,
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great; my reason, haply, more,
To bandy word for word, and frown for frown;
But now, I see our lances are but straws;
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,—
That seeming to be most, which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot:
And place your hands below your husbands' foot :
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease! [me, Kate.
Pet. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss
Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt
ha't.

Vin. 'T is a good hearing, when children are toward.

Luc. But a harsh hearing, when women are froPet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed :— [ward. We three are married, but you two are sped. 'T was I won the wager, though you hit the white ; [To Lucentio.

And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt Petrucio and Kath. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst shrew.

Luc. 'T is a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so. [Exeunt.

ACT I.. SCENE I.-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter Bertram, the Countess of Rousillon, Helena, and Lafeu, in mourning.

Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam ;--you, sir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such abundance. [amendment?

Count. What hope is there of his majesty's Laf. He hath abandoned his physician, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (O, that had! how sad a passage 't is !) whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. 'Would, for the king's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king's disease. [madam?

Laf. How called you the man you speak of, Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon. Laf. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality. Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes Laf. A fistula, my lord. Ber. I heard not of it before.

[of?

Laf. I would it were not notorious.-Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity,-they are virtues and traitors too in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness. [tears.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her Count. 'T is the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena-go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have.

Hel. I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too. Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Hel. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord,
'T is an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
Advise him. Laf. He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.
Count. Heaven bless him !-Farewell, Bertram.
[Exit.

Ber. The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts [to Helena] be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father.

[Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu.
Hel. O, were that all!-I think not on my father;
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him: my imagination
Carries no favour in 't but Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me :
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love. 'T was pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour :
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?
Enter Parolles.

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,
Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
Par. Save you, fair queen.

Hel. And you, monarch.

Hel. And no.

Par. No

Par. Are you meditating on virginity? Hel. Ay. You have some strain of soldier in you; let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him? Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!-Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?

Par. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 't is too cold a companion; away with it.

Hel. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be said in 't; 't is against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin virginity murders itself; and should be buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by 't: Out with 't: within ten year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase; and the principal itself not much the worse: Away with 't. Hel. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

Par. Let me see: Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'T is a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept the less worth: off with 't, while 't is vendible: answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable : just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now: Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek: And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 't is a withered pear; it was formerly better; marry, yet, 't is a withered pear: Will you anything with it? Hel. Not my virginity yet.

There, shall your master have a thousand loves,
A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility,

His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
His faith, his sweet disaster: with a world
Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms,
That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he--

I know not what he shall :-God send him well!-
The court's a learning-place ;—and he is one---
Par. What one, i' faith?

Hel. That I wish well.-'T is pity-
Par. What's pity?

Hel. That wishing well had not a body in 't,
Which might be felt that we, the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends,
And show what we alone must think; which never
Returns us thanks.

Hel. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: But the composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

:

Par. I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalise thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away: farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends: get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee: so farewell.

[Exit.

Hel. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull. What power is it which mounts my love so high; That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? The mightiest space in fortune nature brings To join like likes, and kiss like native things. Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose What hath been cannot be : Who ever strove To show her merit that did miss her love? The king's disease-my project may deceive me, But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me. [Ex.

SCENE II.- Paris. A Room in the King's Palace.
Flourish of cornets. Enter the King of France,
with letters; Lords and others attending.
King. The Florentines and Senoys are by the ears;
Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
A braving war. I Lord. So 't is reported, sir.
King. Nay, 't is most credible; we here receive it
A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
With caution, that the Florentine will move us
For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
Prejudicates the business, and would seem
To have us make denial.

I Lord.

His love and wisdom,

Approv'd so to your majesty, may plead
For amplest credence.

King.

He hath arm'd our answer,
And Florence is denied before he comes :
Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
To stand on either part.

2 Lord.
It well may serve
A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
For breathing and exploit.
King.

What's he comes here?

Enter Bertram, Lafeu, and Parolles.

1 Lord. It is the count Rousillon, my good lord, Young Bertram.

King. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face; Frank nature, rather curious than in haste, Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts May'st thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

Ber. My thanks and duty are your majesty's. King. I would I had that corporal soundness now, As when thy father and myself, in friendship, First tried our soldiership! He did look far Into the service of the time, and was Discipled of the bravest he lasted long; But on us both did haggish age steal on, And wore us out of act. It much repairs me

To talk of your good father: In his youth
He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
So like a courtier; contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride, or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and, at this time,
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
He us'd as creatures of another place;
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled: Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;
Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.

Ber.

His good remembrance, sir, Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb; So in approof lives not his epitaph, As in your royal speech.

[say,

King. 'Would I were with him! He would always
(Methinks I hear him now: his plausive words
He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them,
To grow there, and to bear,)--'Let me not live,'-
Thus his good melancholy oft began,
On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
When it was out,- Let me not live,' quoth he,
'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judginents are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions :'-This he wished:
I, after him, do after him wish too,

Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
To give some labourers room.

2 Lord.
You 're lov'd, sir:
They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
King. I fill a place, I know 't.-How long is 't,
Since the physician at your father's died? [count,
He was much fam'd.

SCENE III.-Rousillon. A Room in the
Countess's Palace.

Enter Countess, Steward, and Clown. Count. I will now hear what say you of this gentlewoman?

Stew. Madam, the care I have had to even your content, I wish might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours for then we wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

Count. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah: The complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 't is my slowness that I do not: for I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.. Clo. 'T is not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.

Count. Well, sir.

Clo. No, madam, 't is not so well that I am poor; though many of the rich are damned: But, if I may have your ladyship's good-will to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may. Count. Wilt thou needs be a beggar? Clo. I do beg your good-will in this case. Count. In what case?

:

Clo. In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage and I think I shall never have the blessing of God, till I have issue of my body; for, they say, barnes are blessings.

Count. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry. Clo. My poor body, madam, requires it: I am driven on by the flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.

Count. Is this all your worship's reason?