Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (epub ebook reader .TXT) 📖

Petruchio did but put this wildness on, the better to succeed in the plot he had formed to tame his shrewish wife.

Baptista had provided a sumptuous marriage feast, but when they returned from church, Petruchio, taking hold of Katharine, declared his intention of carrying his wife home instantly: and no remonstrance of his father-in-law, or angry words of the enraged Katharine, could make him change his purpose. He claimed a husband’s right to dispose of his wife as he pleased, and away he hurried Katharine off: he seeming so daring and resolute that no one dared attempt to stop him.

Petruchio mounted his wife upon a miserable horse, lean and lank, which he had picked out for the purpose, and himself and his servant no better mounted; they journeyed on through rough and miry ways, and ever when this horse of Katharine’s stumbled, he would storm and swear at the poor jaded beast, who could scarce crawl under his burthen, as if he had been the most passionate man alive.

At length, after a weary journey, during which Katharine had heard nothing but the wild ravings of Petruchio at the servant and the horses, they arrived at his house. Petruchio welcomed her kindly to her home, but he resolved she should have neither rest nor food that night. The tables were spread, and supper soon served; but Petruchio, pretending to find fault with every dish, threw the meat about the floor, and ordered the servants to remove it away; and all this he did, as he said, in love for his Katharine, that she might not eat meat that was not well dressed. And when Katharine, weary and supperless, retired to rest, he found the same fault with the bed, throwing the pillows and bedclothes about the room, so that she was forced to sit down in a chair, where if she chanced to drop asleep, she was presently awakened by the loud voice of her husband, storming at the servants for the ill-making of his wife’s bridal-bed.

The next day Petruchio pursued the same course, still speaking kind words to Katharine, but when she attempted to eat, finding fault with everything that was set before her throwing the breakfast on the floor as he had done the supper; and Katharine, the haughty Katherine, was fain to beg the servants would bring her secretly a morsel of food; but they being instructed by Petruchio, replied, they dared not give her anything unknown to their master. ‘Ah,’ said she, ‘did he marry me to famish me? Beggars that come to my father’s door have food given them. But I, who never knew what it was to entreat for anything, am starved for want of food, giddy for want of sleep, with oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed; and that which vexes me more than all, he does it under the name of perfect love, pretending that if I sleep or eat, it were present death to me.’ Here the soliloquy was interrupted by the entrance of Petruchio: he, not meaning she should be quite starved, had brought her a small portion of meat, and he said to her: ‘How fares my sweet Kate? Here, love, you see how diligent I am, I have dressed your meat myself. I am sure this kindness merits thanks.

What, not a word? Nay, then you love not the meat, and all the pains I have taken is to no purpose.’ He then ordered the servant to take the dish away. Extreme hunger, which had abated the pride of Katharine, made her say, though angered to the heart: ‘I pray you let it stand.’ But this was not all Petruchio intended to bring her to, and he replied: ‘The poorest service is repaid with thanks, and so shall mine before you touch the meat.’ On this Katharine brought out a reluctant ‘I thank you, sir.’ And now he suffered her to make a slender meal, saying: ‘Much good may it do your gentle heart, Kate; eat apace! And now, my honey love, we will return to your father’s house, and revel it as bravely as the best, with silken coats and caps and golden rings, with ruffs and scares and fans and double change of finery’; and to make her believe he really intended to give her these gay things, he called in a tailor and a haberdasher, who brought some new clothes he had ordered for her, and then giving her plate to the servant to take away, before she had half satisfied her hunger, he said: ‘What, have you dined?’ The haberdasher presented a cap, saying: ‘Here is the cap your worship bespoke’; on which Petruchio began to storm afresh, saying the cap was moulded in a porringer, and that it was no bigger than a cockle or walnut shell, desiring the haberdasher to take it away and make it bigger. Katharine said: ‘I will have this; all gentlewomen wear such caps as these.’ ‘When you are gentle,’ replied Petruchio, ‘you shall have one too, and not till then.’ The meat Katharine had eaten had a little revived her fallen spirits, and she said: ‘Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak, and speak I will: I am no child, no babe; your betters have endured to hear me say my mind; and if you cannot, you had better stop your ears.’ Petruchio would not hear these angry words, for he had happily discovered a better way of managing his wife than keeping up a jangling argument with her; therefore his answer was: ‘Why, you say true; it is a paltry cap, and I love you for not liking it.’

‘Love me, or love me not,’ said Katharine, ‘I like the cap, and I will have this cap or none.’ ‘You say you wish to see the gown,’ said Petruchio, still affecting to misunderstand her. The tailor then came forward and showed her a fine gown he had made for her. Petruchio, whose intent was that she should have neither cap nor gown, found as much fault with that. ‘O mercy, Heaven!’ said he, ‘what stuff is here!

What, do you call this a sleeve? it is like a demi-cannon, carved up and down like an apple tart.’ The tailor said: ‘You bid me make it according to the fashion of the times’; and Katharine said, she never saw a better fashioned gown. This was enough for Petruchio, and privately desiring these people might be paid for their goods, and excuses made to them for the seemingly strange treatment he bestowed upon them, he with fierce words and furious gestures drove the tailor and the haberdasher out of the room; and then, turning to Katharine, he said: ‘Well, come, my Kate, we will go to your father’s even in these mean garments we now wear.’ And then he ordered his horses, affirming they should reach Baptista’s house by dinner-time, for that it was but seven o’clock. Now it was not early morning but the very middle of the day, when he spoke this, therefore Katharine ventured to say, though modestly, being almost overcome by the vehemence of his manner: ‘I dare assure you, sir, it is two o’clock. and will be supper-time before we get there.’ But Petruchio meant that she should be so completely subdued, that she should assent to everything he said, before he carried her to her father; and therefore, as if he were lord even of the sun, and could command the hours, he said it should be what time he pleased to have it, before he set forward; ‘For,’ he said, ‘whatever I say or do, you still are crossing it. I will not go to-day, and when I go, it shall be what o’clock I say it is.’ Another day Katherine was forced to practice her newly found obedience, and not till he had brought her proud spirit to such a perfect subjection, that she dared not remember there was such a word as contradiction, would Petruchio allow her to go to her father’s house; and even while they were upon their journey thither, she was in danger of being turned back again, only because she happened to hint it was the sun, when he affirmed the moon shone brightly at noonday. ‘Now, by my mother’s son,’ said he, ‘and that is myself, it shall be the moon, or stars, or what I list, before I journey to your father’s house.’ He then made as if he were going back again; but Katherine, no longer Katherine the Shrew, but the obedient wife, said: ‘Let us go forward, I pray, now we have come so far, and it shall be the sun, or moon, or what you please, and if you please to call it a rush candle henceforth, I vowed it shall be so for me.’ This he was resolved to prove, therefore he said again: ‘I say, it is the moon.’ ‘I know it is the moon,’ replied Katherine. ‘You lie, it is the blessed sun,’ said Petruchio. ‘Then it is the blessed sun,’

replied Katherine; ‘but sun it is not, when you say it is not. What you will have it named, even so it is, and so it ever shall be for Katherine.’

Now then he suffered her to proceed on her journey; but further to try if this yielding humour would last, he addressed an old gentleman they met on the road as if he had been a young woman, saying to him: ‘Good morrow, gentle mistress’; and asked Katherine if she had ever beheld a fairer gentlewoman, praising the red and white of the old man’s cheeks, and comparing his eyes to two bright stars; and again he addressed him, saying: ‘Fair lovely maid, once more good day to you!’

and said to his wife: ‘Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake.’

The now completely vanquished Katharine quickly adopted her husband’s opinion, and made her speech in like sort to the old gentleman, saying to him: ‘Young budding virgin, you are fair, and fresh, and sweet: whither are you going, and where is your dwelling?

Happy are the parents of so fair a child.’ ‘Why, how now, Kate,’ said Petruchio; ‘I hope you are not mad. This is a man, old and wrinkled, faded and withered, and not a maiden, as you say he is.’ On this Katharine said: ‘Pardon me, old gentleman; the sun has so dazzled my eyes, that everything I look on seemeth green. Now I perceive you are a reverend father: I hope you will pardon me for my sad mistake.’ ‘Do, good old grand-sire,’ said Petruchio, ‘and tell us which way you are travelling. We shall be glad of your good company, if you are going our way.’ The old gentleman replied: ‘ Fair sir, and you my merry mistress, your strange encounter has much amazed me. My name is Vincentio, and I am going to visit a son of mine who lives at Padua.’

Then Petruchio knew the old gentleman to e the father of Lucentio, a young gentleman who was to be married to Baptista’s younger daughter, Bianca, and he made Vincentio very happy, by telling him the rich marriage his son was about to make: and they all journeyed on pleasantly together till they came to Baptista’s house, where there was a large company assembled to celebrate the wedding of Bianca and Lucentio, Baptista having willingly consented to the marriage of Bianca when he had got Katharine off his hands.

When they entered, Baptista welcomed them to the wedding feast, and there was present also another newly married pair.

Lucentio, Bianca’s husband, and Hortensio, the other new married man, could not forbear sly jests, which seemed to hint at the shrewish disposition of Petruchio’s wife, and these fond bridegrooms seemed high pleased with the mild tempers of the ladies they had chosen, laughing at Petruchio for his less fortunate choice.