TAMING OF THE SHREW.

ACT V.

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are.

Kath. Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind But that our soft conditions, and our hearts, brow,

Should well agree with our external parts ?
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, Come, come, you froward and unable worms,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor :

My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
It blots thy beauty, as frosts do bite the meads, My heart as great, my reason, haply, more
Confounds thy fame, as whirlwinds shake fair buds, To bandy word for word, and frown for frown;
And in no sense is meet, or amiable.

But now I see our lances are but straws,
A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled,

Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty ; That seeming to be most, which we indeed least And, while it is so, none so dry or thirsty Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.

Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper And place your hands below your husband's foot: Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, In token of which duty, if he please, And for thy maintenance; commits his body My hand is ready, may it do him ease. To painful labour, both by sea and land,

Pet. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,

me, Kate. Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt And craves no other tribute at thy hands,

ha't. But love, fair looks, and true obedience,

Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toToo little payment for so great a debt.

ward. Sueh duty as the subject owes the prince,

Luc. But a harsh hearing, when women are froEven such a woman oweth to her husband;

ward. And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour, Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed.And not obedient to his honest will,

We three are married, but you two are sped. What is she but a foul contending rebel,

'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white; And graceless traitor to her loving lord ?

[TO LUCENTIO. I am asham'd, that women are so simple

And, being a winner, God give you good night. To offer war where they should kneel for peace,

(Exeunt PETRUChio and Kath. Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,

Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.

shrew. Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth, Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,

tam'd so.

[Ereunt.

INDUCTION.-SCENE I.

“ the tinker swears by Saint Jerome, calling him Saint "TU Pheese you, in faith”—In the old “ Taming Jeronimy, 'Go, by S. Jeronimy,' etc." of a Shrew" this is printed fese. Ben Jonson uses the “ – I must go fetch the THIRDBOROUGH"--In the word in his “ Alchemist," and spells it, in his folio of original folio this is printed headborough, by which mis1616, feize. It is the same word, however spelled ; take the humour of Sly's answer is lost. The "thirdand Gifford, a West-of-England man, says that in that borough" is a name given in old law-books, and in the part of England it means "to beat, chastise, or humble," statute of 28 Hen. VIII., to the officer more generally etc. See “ Jonson's Works," vol. iv. p. 188. Dr. John- since called constable. The name appears, from a quoson, on the authority of Sir Th. Smith, “ De Sermone tation of Ritson's, to be still retained in Warwickshire. Anglico,” says that it means " to separate a rope, or twist into single threads.” Such may have been its

“ ['U not budge an inch, boy: let him come, and original sense, but there is no doubt that it is used fig. kindly.

(Lies down on the ground," etc. uratively in the way Gifford has explained.

The older play opens thus :Therefore, PAUCAS PALLABRIS ; let the world slide.

Enter a Tapster, bcating out of his doors, Slie, drunken. SESSA!"

Tap. You whoreson, drunken slave, you had best be gone

And empty your drunken paunch somewhere else, “ Pocas palabras" is Spanish for “few words," a For in this house thou shalt not rest to-night. phrase common in the time of Shakespeare. “ Sessa"

Slie. Tilly vally ; by crisee, Tapster, I'll fese you anon, is the Spanish word cessa, cease. It occurs also in

Fill's the other pot, and all's paid for, look you.

I do drink it of mine own instigation. the form of “sessy," in King LEAR, act iii. scene 4. Here I'll lie a while. Why, Tapster, I say,

Fill's a fresh cushen here. “— the glasses you have BURST"-i. e. Broken. John

Heigh-ho, here's good warm lying.

(He falls asleep. of Gaunt "burst Shallow's head for crowding in among the marshal's men."

The comic part of the original drama is feeble. The

more serious portions are better, and not unworthy of “Go, by S. Jeronimy," etc.—This sentence is gen- Greene, to whom the play is ascribed by Knight and erally printed, in the majority of modern editions, “Go others, with much probability. by, says Jeronimy:-Go to thy cold bed," etc. Theo- The next extract, which immediately follows the above, bald pointed out that in the old play of “ Hieronymo" affords a fair specimen :there is the expression “Go by, go by." On this au

Enter a Nobleman, and his Men, from hunting. thority, Mason altered the “Go by S. Jeronimie" of the

Lord. Now that the gloomy shadow of the night, original copy to “ Go by, says Jeronimy.” With Knight Longing to view Orion's drisling looks, we retain the old reading, and agree with him that Leaps from th' antarctic world unto the sky,

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A od dims the welkin with her pitchy breath,

“For God's sake, a pot of SMALL ALE”—This beverage A od darksome night o'ersbades the crystal heavens,

is mentioned in the accounts of the Stationers' Company Here break we off our hunting for to-night. Couple up the hounds, let us hie us home,

for the year 1558:-“For a stande of small ale." It And bid the huntsman see them meated well,

is supposed to be the same liquor as is now called small For they bave all deserved it well to-day.

beer; no mention being made of the last in the same But soft, what sleepy fellow is this lies here? Or is he dead? See one what he doth lack.

accounts, though "duble bere" and “duble ale” are Serv. My lord, 'tis nothing but a drunken sleep:

frequently recorded. Sly subsequently reverts to his His head is too heavy for his body,

first request :—"Once again, a pot o' the smallest ale.” And he hath drunk so much that he can go no further. Its thinness, which might have been an objection on the

Lord. Fie, how the slavish villain stinks of drink!
Ho, sirrah, arise! What, so sound asleep? -

preceding day, is now its most desirable quality to the Go take him up, and bear hiin to my house,

parched palate of the recovering drunkard.
And bear him easily, for fear he wake;
And in my fairest chamber make a fire,

“ — by transmutation a BEAR-HERD"-i. e. BearApd set a sumptuous banquet on the board,

ward, or keeper of bears for baiting.
And put my richest garinents on his back,
Then set him at the table in a chair;

“ Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alerife of Wincot" When that is done, against he shall awake,

Doubtless, Marian Hacket was living and well known Let beavenly music play about him still.

at Wincot, about four miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, Go two of you away, and bear him hence, And then I'll tell you what I have devised.

about the time this play was written. Afterwards,

(Exeunt two, with Sue. " Cicely Hacket” is spoken of by one of the servants. Now take my cloak, and give me one of yours: All fellows now, and see you take me so:

“ What! I am not BESTRAUGHT"_“Bestraught" was For we will wait upon this drunken man,

used by Warner, and also Lord Surrey. It is explained To see his countenance when he doth awake

by Minshew as synonymous with distraught, or disAnd find himself clothed in such attire, With heavenly music sounding in his ears.

tracted. And such a banquet set before his eyes;

"- nor CHRISTOPHER Sly”—The modern editions The fellow sure will think he is in heaven; But we will be about him when he wakes ;

print this Christophero, to make out the metre. I have And see you call him lord at every word;

preferred retaining the old reading, because it marks And offer thou him his horse to ride abroad;

a change in pronunciation ; “ Christopher" having anAnd thou his hawk, and hounds to hunt the deer;

ciently the accent on the syllable before the last.
And I will ask what suit he means to wear;
And whatsoe'er he saith, see you do not laugh,

“-present her at the lEET”-i, e. At the court-leet But still persuade him that he is a lord,

or manor-court, which had special jurisdiction over “Brach Merriman,—the poor cur is Emboss'D," etc.

innholders and abuses in selling liquor by other mea

sures than the sealed or licensed quarts. " In Lear, act. iii. scene 5, Shakespeare uses the word brach' as indicating a dog of a particular species,

- and old John Naps OF GREECE"-Blackstone or class :

suggested that we ought to read, o' the Green, instead Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,

“of Greece;" and it is the more probable, as green Hound or spaniel, brach or lym.

was formerly almost invariably spelled with a final e. But he in other places employs it in the way indicated

“ John Naps of Greece" seems nonsense, notwithstandin an old book on sports, called “The Gentleman's Re

ing Stevens shows “a hart of greece," or grease, meant creation:'--' A brach is a mannerly name for all hound

a fat hart; and hence he argues that it was only a mode bitches.' The Lord is pointing out one of his pack-

of calling John Naps a fat man. • Brach Merriman'-adding, 'the poor cur is emboss'd,' that is, swollen by hard running. Ritson, however,

ACT I.-SCENE I. would read--- Bathe Merriman,' and Hanmer--Leech Merriman.'"-KNIGHT.

“ To see fair Padua, nursery of arts," etc. ** A dog, when strained with hard running, will have “During the ages when books were scarce and semhis knees swelled, and then he is said to be embossed." inaries of learning few, men of accomplishment in litT. WARTOX.

erature, science, and art, crowded into cities which were

graced by universities. Nothing could be more natural “ And, when he says he is—, say, that he dreams," etc. and probable than that a tutor, like Licio, should repair

“ The sentence is left imperfect,” observes Black- to Padua from Mantua : stone, “because the Lord does not know what to call

His name is Licio, born in Mantuahim,-as if he had said, when he says he is so and so.' Hanmer would insert poor, and Johnson Sly, although

or, a student, like Lucentio, from Pisa, the Lord could not know the name of the beggar. No

— as he tnat leaves change is necessary, and the metre of the line is perfect

The shallow plash, to plunge him in the deep,as it stands.

or, ‘a Pedant,' (act iv. scene 2,) turning aside from the Thus the editors generally; yet there is some prob- road to · Rome and Tripoly,' to spend ^ a week or two' ability in the correction suggested by the typographical in the great nursery of arts' of the Italian peninsula. experience of Z. Jackson :—" And what he says he is, The University of Padua was in all its glory in Shakesay that he dreams,” which corresponds with the First speare's day; and it is difficult to those who have exHuntsman's reply:

plored the city to resist the persnasion that the Poet him

self had been one of the travellers who had come from - he shall think, by our true diligence, He is no less than what we say he is.

afar to look upon its seats of learning, if not to partake

of its · ingenious studies.' There is a pure Paduan atmoSCENE II.

sphere hanging about this play; and the visitor of

to-day sees other Lucentios and Tranios in the knots “ Sly is discovered," etc.--"The old stage-direction of students who meet and accost in the public places,' is, “Enter aloft the drunkard with attendants,' etc.; and the servants who buy in the market; while there the meaning of which is, that Sly and those about him may be many an accomplished Bianca among the citiwere represented in a balcony at the back of the stage, zens' daughters who take their walks along the arcades whence they were to witness the performance of the of the venerable streets. Influences of learning, love, actors. Such appears to have been invariably the case and mirth, are still abroad in the place, breathing as when a play within a play' was represented in the old they do in the play. theatres; the reverse of onr modern practice, where the " The University of Padua was founded by Frederick play within a play is exhibited on a raised platform at Barbarossa, early in the thirteenth century, and was, for the back of the stage, and the actors in the main play several hundred years, a favourite resort of learned men. are in front."-COLLIER.

Among other great personages, Petrarch, Galileo, and

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Christopher Columbus studied there. The number of the text further than by changing the syllable par into students was once (we believe in Shakespeare's age) per? It then expresses, (instead of pardon me,) me eighteen thousand. Now that universities have multi- being pardoned; and is suitable both to the sense and plied, none are so thronged; but that of Padua still the metrenumbers from fifteen hundred to twenty-three hundred.

Me perdonato,-gentle master mine." Most of the educated youth of Lombardy pursue their studies there, and numbers from a greater distance.

“Or so devote to Aristotle's ETHICKS"— The original

text has • • The mathematics' are still a favourite branch of learning,

Aristotle's checks," which Knight and other

editors retain. There is no very evident sense of checks with some “Greek, Latin, and other languages;' also

which will suit the context, and therefore Judge Blacknatural philosophy and medicine. History and morals,

stone considered this as a misprint or error of a copyist and consequently politics, seem to be discouraged, if

for “ethicks;" which supposition is right. The error is not omitted. The aspect of the University of Padua is now somewhat forlorn, though its halls are respectably

natural for a copyist or compositor, and the context suptenanted by students. Its mouldering courts and dim

ports the correction. Tranio, speaking of the sciences, staircases are thickly hung with the heraldic blazonry

runs over the circle of them according to the familiar of the pious benefactors of the institution. The num.

division of the times, and speaks of logic, rhetoric, music, ber of these coats-of-arms is so vast as to convey a strong

poetry, mathematics, metaphysics; and “ethicks" would

follow of course in such an enumeration. Besides, Arisimpression of what the splendour of this seat of learn

totle's “ Ethicks" were familiar to the stage, for Ben ing must once have been."-Knight.

Jonson mentions them in his “Silent Woman." - fruitful Lombardy,

“Balk logic"--This word of the original was changed The pleasant garden of great Italy."

into talk, by Rowe, and is adopted in most editions, ex“The rich plain of Lombardy is still like a pleasant cept those of Knight and Singer. “ Balk" seems to me garden,' and appears as if it must ever continue to be

used in its primitive sense, “ to pass over; to leave unso, sheltered as it is by the vast barrier of the Alps, and touched ;" and Tranio means, Leave logic alone with fertilized by the streams which descend from their gla. your acquaintance, and talk rhetoric with them, etc. ciers. From the walls of the Lombard cities, which are usually reared on rising grounds, the prospects are en

“ To make a state of me"-"She means, • Do you chanting, presenting a fertile expanse, rarely disfigured

intend to make a strumpet of me among these companby fences, intersected by the great Via Æmilia-one ions?' But the expression seems to have a quibbling long avenue of mulberry trees; gleaming here and there allusion to the chess term of stale-mate. So in Bacon's with transparent lakes, and adorned with scattered • Twelfth Essay' - They stand like a stale at chess, towns, villas, and churches, rising from among the vines. where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir.' Corn, oil, and wine, are everywhere ripening together; || Shakespeare sometimes uses stale' for a decoy, as in and not a speck of barrenness is visible, from the north- the second scene of the third act of this play."eru Alps and eastern Adriatic, to the unobstructed south- SINGER. ern horizon, where the plain melts away in sunshine."

“ A pretty peat !"-"Peat or pet," says Johnson, " is KNIGHT.

a word of endearment, from petit, little." “My trusty servant"-So the folio. The word has

- for to CUNNING men"—i. e. Knowing, learned. been changed by some editors to most.

"Cunning," or conning, was originally knowledge, or

skill; and is so used in our translation of the Bible. “- and haply institute"-" In the modern editions, "haply' is misprinted happily, which is a distinct word,

Shakespeare, in general, uses cunning" in the modern with a different etymology. Haply' means perhaps,

sense, as in Lear:and not fortunately. So, at the end of the first scene

Time sball unfold what plaited cunning hides. of the Induction, the Lord says

But, in this play, the adjective is used in two other in- haply, my presence

stances in its older sense :May well aba te, etc.

Cunning in music, and the mathematics. In both cases, the line requires a word of two and not

cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages. of three syllables. When the line requires that haply' should be pronounced as a trisyllable, it was generally should read · Your love :' y; in old writing, stood for

“Their love is not so great" — " It seems that we spelled “happily.' Act iv. scene 4, of this comedy affords either their or your.

If their love be right, it must examples of happily' used in both senses.”—COLLIER.

mean—The goodwill of Baptista and Bianca towards “ Gave me my being; my father, first

us.”—Malone. A merchant of great traffic through the world,

“ I will wish him to her father"-i. e. I will recomVincentio's come of the Bentivolii."

mend him: to wish was often used in this sense. In This is the original folio reading, and though not with- act i. scene 2, of this play, Hortensio says,

“ And roisk out obscurity, may well be understood and intended to thee to a shrewd ill-favoured wife." say thus—"My father, who is firstly a merchant of the highest class, is also a noble, Vincentio, descended from “ Happy man be his pole”-A proverbial expression. the illustrious Bentivolii. It shall, therefore, become “ Dole” is any thing dealt out or distributed. The phrase his son, myself, to deck that name and fortune with vir. is equivalent to “happy man bo his lot or portion." tuous acts." Few of the later editors, however, are satisfied with this reading and explanation, and they sion," as Douce remarks, " to the sport of running at the

“ He that runs fastest gets the RING"-"An alluadopt Hanmer's emendation—“Vincentio's come of the Bentivolii," as meaning, that “ Pisa gave me being, and

ring." before me my father, that father descended of the Ben- “REDIME TE CAPTUM," etc.—This line is in Lily's tivolii.”

“Grammar," and, as Dr. Farmer observes, it is quoted “ ME PERDONATO"-—“Me Pardonato" is the original

as it stands in the Grammar, and not as in TERENCE. text, for which Stevens and Malone say that we should

" Because she will not be annoy'd with suitors"read Mi Pardonate; and this emendation has been gen

Thus the old folios; the meaning being, that Bianca erally adopted. We retain the old text, with the change

wishes not to be fruitlessly annoyed with suitors. of a letter, for the reason well stated by Mr. C. Armi

Rowe, and other editors, substituted shall for “ will." tage Brown, who thus objects to Mi Pardonate :

** Indeed we should read no such thing as two silly “BASTA; content thee"-i. e. Enough ; Italian and errors in two common words. Shakespeare may have Spanish. The same word is used by Beaumont and written Mi perdoni, or Perdonatemi; but why disturb Fletcher.

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