Enter Curtis.
Curt. Who is that calls so coldly?
Gru. A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from my shoulder to my heel with no greater a run but my head and my neck. A fire, good Curtis.
Curt. Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?
Gru. O ay, Curtis, ay, and therefore fire, fire; cast on no water.
Curt. Is she so hot a shrew as she’s reported?
Gru. She was, good Curtis, before this frost; but thou know’st winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tam’d my old master and my new mistress and myself, fellow Curtis.
Curt. Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.
Gru. Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot, and so long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress, whose hand (she being now at hand) thou shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?
Curt. I prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world?
Gru. A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine, and therefore fire. Do thy duty and have thy duty, for my master and mistress are almost frozen to death.
Curt. There’s fire ready, and therefore, good Grumio, the news.
Gru. Why, “Jack, boy! ho, boy!” and as much news as wilt thou.
Curt. Come, you are so full of cony-catching!
Gru. Why, therefore fire, for I have caught extreme cold. Where’s the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimm’d, rushes strew’d, cobwebs swept, the servingmen in their new fustian, [their] white stockings, and every officer his wedding garment on? Be the Jacks fair within, the Gills fair without, the carpets laid, and every thing in order?
Curt. All ready; and therefore I pray thee, news.
Gru. First, know my horse is tir’d, my master and mistress fall’n out.
Curt. How?
Gru. Out of their saddles into the dirt, and thereby hangs a tale.
Curt. Let’s ha’t, good Grumio.
Gru. Lend thine ear.
Curt. Here.
Gru. There.
[Strikes him.]
Curt. This ’tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.
Gru. And therefore ’tis call’d a sensible tale; and this cuff was but to knock at your ear, and beseech list’ning. Now I begin: Inprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress—
Curt. Both of one horse?
Gru. What’s that to thee?
Curt. Why, a horse.
Gru. Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not cross’d me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell, and she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was bemoil’d, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me; how he swore, how she pray’d that never pray’d before; how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst; how I lost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory, which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienc’d to thy grave.
Curt. By this reck’ning he is more shrew than she.
Gru. Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest; let their heads be slickly comb’d, their blue coats brush’d, and their garters of an indifferent knit; let them curtsy with their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my master’s horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready?
Curt. They are.
Gru. Call them forth.
Curt. Do you hear, ho? You must meet my master to countenance my mistress.
Gru. Why, she hath a face of her own.
Curt. Who knows not that?
Gru. Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her.
Curt. I call them forth to credit her.
Enter four or five Servingmen.
Gru. Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.
Nath. Welcome home, Grumio!
Phil. How now, Grumio?
Jos. What, Grumio!
Nich. Fellow Grumio!
Nath. How now, old lad?
Gru. Welcome, you; how now, you; what, you; fellow, you—and thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all ready, and all things neat?
Nath. All things is ready. How near is our master?
Gru. E’en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not—Cock’s passion, silence! I hear my master.
Enter Petruchio and Kate.
Pet.
Where be these knaves? What, no man at door
To hold my stirrup, nor to take my horse?
Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?
All Serv.
Here, here, sir, here, sir.
Pet.
Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!
You loggerheaded and unpolish’d grooms!
What? no attendance? no regard? no duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?
Gru.
Here, sir, as foolish as I was before.
Pet.
You peasant swain, you whoreson malt-horse drudge!
Did I not bid thee meet me in the park,
And
