To change true rules for odd inventions.

Enter a Servant.

Ser. 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.
[Exe. BIANCA and Servant.
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.

The same. Before BAPTISTA's House. Enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO, KATHARINE, BIANCA, LUCENTIO, and Attendants.

Bap. Signior Lucentio, [To TRANIO.] this is the

'pointed day

That Katharine 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'd rudesby, full of spleen ;5
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 behaviour:
And, to be noted for a merry man,

He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite, yes, and proclaim the banns;
Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.
Now must the world point at poor Katharine,
And say,-Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,
If it would please him come and marry her.
Tra. Patience, good Katharine, and Baptista too;
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,

[5] That is, full of humour, caprice and inconstancy.

JOHNSON,

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, Katharine 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 saint,
Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.

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 turned; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another laced; an old rusty sword, ta'en out of the town-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with twobroken points :6 His horse hipped with an old mothy saddle, the stirrups of no kindred: besides, possessed with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped with spavins, raied with the yellows, past cure of the fives, 7 stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots; swayed in the back, and shouldershotten; near-legged before, & and with a half-checked bit, and a head-stall of sheep's leather; which, being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now repaired with knots: one girt six times pieced, and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath

[6] The broken points might be the two broken tags to the laces. TOLLET. [7] Fashions. So called in the west of England, but by the best writers on farriery, farcens, or farcy. Fives. So called in the west: vives elsewhere, and avives by the French; a distemper in horses, little differing from the strangles.

GREY.

[8] i. e. founder'd in his fore-feet; having as the jockies term it, never a fore leg to stand on. MAL.

two letters for her name, fairly set down in studs, and here and there pieced with packthread.

Bap. Who comes with him?

Bion. O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparisoned like the horse; with a linen stock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red and blue list; an old hat, and The humour of forty fancies pricked in't for a feather:9 a monster, a very monster in apparel; and not like a christian foot boy, or a gentleman's lackey.

Tra. 'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;
-Yet oftentimes he goes but mean apparell'd.

Bap. I am glad he is come, howsoe'er he comes.
Bion. Why, sir, he comes not.

Bap. Didst thou not say, he comes?

Bion. Who? that Petruchio came?

Bap. Ay, that Petruchio came.

Bion. No, sir; I say, his horse comes with him on his back.

Bap. Why, that's all one.

Bion. Nay, by saint Jamy, I hold you a penny,

A horse and a man is more than one, and yet not many.

Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO.

Pet. Come, where be these gallants? who is at home?

Bap. You are welcome, sir.

Pet. And yet I come not well.

Bap. And yet you halt not.

Tra. Not so well apparell'd

As I wish you were.

Pet. Were it better I should rush in thus.

But where is Kate? where is my lovely bride ?-
How does my father?-Gentles, methinks you frown:
And wherefore gaze this goodly company;
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet, or unusual prodigy ?

Bap. Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:

[9] This was some ballad or drollery of that time, which the poet here ridicules, by making Petruchio prick it up in his foot-boy's hat for a feather. His speakers are perpetually quoting scraps and stanzas of ballads, and often very obscurely; for so well are they adapted to the occasion, that they seem of a piece with the rest. In Shakspeare's time, the kingdom was over-run with these doggrel compositions. And he seems to have borne them a very particular grudge. He frequently ridicules both them and their makers with excellent humour. WARB.

I have some doubts concerning this interpretation. A fancy appears to have been some ornament worn formerly in the hat. A fancy, however, meant also a love-song or sonnet, or other poem. MAL.

First, were we sad, fearing you would not come;
Now, sadder, that you come so unprovided.
Fie! doff this habit, shame to your estate,
An eye-sore to our solemn festival.

Tra. And tell us, what occasion of import
Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife,
And sent you hither so unlike yourself?

Pet. Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:
Sufficeth, I am come to keep my word,
Though in some part enforced to digress;
Which, at more leisure, I will so excuse
As you shall well be satisfied withal.

But, where is Kate? I stay too long from her;
The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.

Tra. See not your bride in these unreverent robes ;

Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.

Pet. Not I, believe me; thus I'll visit her.
Bap. But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.

Pet. Good sooth, even thus; therefore have done

with words;

To me she's married, not unto my clothes :
Could I repair what she will wear in me,
As I can change these poor accoutrements,
'Twere well for Kate, and better for myself.
But what a fool am I, to chat with you,
When I should bid good-morrow to my bride,
And seal the title with a lovely kiss?

[Exe. PET. &c.

Tra. He hath some meaning in his mad attire :

We will persuade him, be it possible,

To put on better ere he go to church.

Bap. I'll after him, and see the event of this. [Exit.

Tra. But, sir, to her love concerneth us to add

Her father's liking: Which to bring to pass,
As I before imparted to your worship,
I am to get a man, whate'er he be,
It skills not much; we'll fit him to our turn,-
And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa;
And make assurance, here in Padua,
Of greater sums than I have promised.
So shall you quietly enjoy your hope,
And marry sweet Bianca with consent.

Luc. Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster
Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,
'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;
Which once perform'd, let all the world say-no,

I'll keep mine own, despite of all the world.
Tra. That by degrees we mean to look into,

And watch our vantage in this business:
We'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,
The narrow-prying father, Minola;
The quaint musician, amorous Licio ;

All for my master's sake, Lucentio.

Re-enter GREMIO.

Signior Gremio! came you from the church?
Gre. As willingly as e'er I came from school.
Tra. And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?
Gre. A bridegroom, say you? 'tis a groom indeed,

A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.
Tra. Curster than she? why, 'tis impossible.
Gre. Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.
Tra. Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.
Gre. Tut! she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him.

I'll tell you, sir Lucentio; When the priest
Should ask,-if Katharine should be his wife,
Ay, by gogs-wouns, quoth he; and swore so loud,
That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book :
And, as he stoop'd again to take it up,
The mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff,
That down fell priest and book, and book and priest;
Now take them up, quoth he, if any list.

Tra. What said the wench, when he arose again?
Gre. Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd, and

swore,

As if the vicar meant to cozen him.

But after many ceremonies done,

He calls for wine :-A health, quoth he; as if
He had been aboard, carousing to his mates
After a storm :-quaff'd off the muscadel,
And threw the sops all in the sexton's face;
Having no other reason, -

[1] Quaff'd off the muscadel,-It appears from this passage, and the following one in The History of the Two Maids of Moreclacke, a comedy by Robert Armin, 1609, that it was the custom to drink wine immediately after the marriage ceremony. Armin's play begins thus :

"Enter a Maid strewing flowers, and a serving-man perfuming the door.

"Maid. Strew, strew.

"Man. The muscadine stays for the bride at church.

"The priest and Hymen's ceremonies 'tend

"To make them man and wife."

STEEV.

The fashion of introducing a bowl of wine into the church at a wedding, to be drank by the bride and bridegroom, and persons present, was very anciently a constant ceremony; and as appears from this passage, not abolished in our author's age. T. WARTON.