Pet. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?
Kath. They sit conferring by the parlour fire.
Pet. Go, fetch them hither: if they deny to come,
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

[Exit Katharina.

Luc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
Hor. And so it is: I wonder what it bodes.
Pet. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy;

And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy?

Bap. Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!

The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,

For she is changed, as she had never been.
Pet. Nay, I will win my wager better yet,

And show more sign of her obedience,

Her new-built virtue and obedience.

III

See where she comes and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.

Re-enter Katharina, with Bianca and Widow.

Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot.
Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

Bian. Fie, what a foolish duty call you this?
Luc. I would your duty were as foolish too:

The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,

120

Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.

Bian. The more fool you, for laying on my duty.

129

Pet. Katharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. Wid. Come, come, you're mocking: we will have no telling. Pet. Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

Wid. She shall not.

Pet. I say she shall and first begin with her.

:

Kath. Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow;
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes.
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor :
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful labour both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel,

And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple

150

160

To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,

When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,

170

Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,

My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

179

Pet. Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.
Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.
Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toward.
Luc. But a harsh hearing, when women are froward.
Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed.

We three are married, but you two are sped.
'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;
[To Lucentio.

And, being a winner, God give you good night!
[Exeunt Petruchio and Katharina.
Hor. Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.
Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.

[Exeunt.

Feran. Now lovely Kate before their husbands here

I prithee tell unto these headstrong women
What duty wives do owe unto their husbands.
Kate. Then you that live thus by your pampered wills,
Now list to me and mark what I shall say.

Th' eternal power that with his only breath,
Shall cause this end and this beginning framed,

Not in time, nor before time, but with time, confused,
For all the course of years, of ages, months,

Of seasons temperate, of days and hours,

Are tuned and stopt, by measure of His hand;
The first world was a form without a form,

A heap confused, a mixture all deformed,
A gulf of gulfs, a body bodiless,
Where all the elements were orderless,
Before the great commander of the world,
The King of Kings, the glorious God of heaven,
Who in six days did frame his heavenly worke,
And made all things to stand in perfect course,
Then to his image he did make a man,
Old Adam, and from his side asleep,

A rib was taken, of which the Lord did make,
The woe of man, so termed by Adam then,
Woman, for that by her came sin to us,
And for her sin was Adam doomed to die.
As Sara to her husband, so should we

Obey them, love them, keep, and nourish them,
If they by any means do want our helps,
Laying our hands under their feet to tread,
If that by that we might procure their ease,
And for a precedent I'll first begin,

And lay my hand under my husband's feet.

[She lays her hand under her husband's feet.

THE TAMING OF A SHREW; cp. Act V. ii. 130-180.