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.
Mess.
Your honor’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 comonty 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.
[They all sit.] Flourish.
¶
[ACT I]
[Scene I]
Enter Lucentio and his man Tranio.
Luc.
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 saciety seeks to quench his thirst.
Tra.
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 practice 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.
Luc.
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 a while, what company is this?
Tra.
Master, some show to welcome us to town.
Enter Baptista with his two daughters, Katherina and Bianca, Gremio, a pantaloon, Hortensio, [suitor] to Bianca. Lucentio, Tranio stand by.
Bap.
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolv’d you know:
That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before
