sol re, one cliff, two notes have I,
E la mi, show pity, or I die.”
Call you this gamouth? Tut, I like it not.
Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice
To [change] true rules for [odd] inventions.
Enter a Messenger.
[Mess.]
Mistress, your father prays you leave your books,
And help to dress your sister’s chamber up.
You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.
Bian.
Farewell, sweet masters both, I must be gone.
[Exeunt Bianca and Messenger.]
Luc.
Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.
[Exit.]
Hor.
But I have cause to pry into this pedant.
Methinks he looks as though he were in love;
Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble
To cast thy wand’ring eyes on every stale,
Seize thee that list. If once I find thee ranging,
Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing.
Exit.
¶
[Scene II]
Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio [as Lucentio], Katherine, Bianca, [Lucentio as Cambio,] and others, attendants.
Bap. [To Tranio.]
Signior Lucentio, this is the ’pointed day,
That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,
And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.
What will be said? What mockery will it be,
To want the bridegroom when the priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage?
What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?
Kath.
No shame but mine. I must forsooth be forc’d
To give my hand oppos’d against my heart
Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen,
Who woo’d in haste, and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behavior;
And to be noted for a merry man,
He’ll woo a thousand, ’point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite, and proclaim the banes,
Yet never means to wed where he hath woo’d.
Now must the world point at poor Katherine,
And say, “Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife,
If it would please him come and marry her!”
Tra.
Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word.
Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
Though he be merry, yet withal he’s honest.
Kath.
Would Katherine had never seen him though!
Exit weeping [followed by Bianca and others].
Bap.
Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,
For such an injury would vex a very saint,
Much more a shrew of [thy] impatient humor.
Enter Biondello.
Bion. Master, master, news, [old news,] and such news as you never heard of!
Bap. Is it new and old too? how may that be?
Bion. Why, is it not news to [hear] of Petruchio’s coming?
Bap. Is he come?
Bion. Why, no, sir.
Bap. What then?
Bion. He is coming.
Bap. When will he be here?
Bion. When he stands where I am, and sees you there.
Tra. But say, what to thine old news?
Bion. Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn’d; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac’d; an old rusty sword ta’en out of the town armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two broken points; his horse hipp’d, with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possess’d with the glanders and like to mose in the chine, troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped with spavins, ray’d with the yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoil’d with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, [sway’d] in the back, and shoulder-shotten, near-legg’d before, and with a half-cheek’d bit and a head-stall of sheep’s leather, which being restrain’d to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now repair’d with knots; one girth six times piec’d, and a woman’s crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in studs, and here and there piec’d with packthread.
Bap. Who comes with him?
Bion. O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparison’d like the horse; with a linen stock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gart’red with a red and blue list; an old hat, and the humor of
