Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh, Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

Bian. Fye! what a foolish duty call you this?
Luc. I would, your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,

Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.
Bian. The more fool you, for laying on my duty.

Pet. Katharine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong wonen 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. Fye, fye! unknit that threat'ning 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 mov'd 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,
While 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's 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 asham'd, that women are so simple

To offer war, where they should kneel for peace;
Cr 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;

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 hand below your husbands' foot:

In token of which duty, if he please,

My hand is ready, may it do him ease!

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. 'T is 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.
'T was I won the wager, though you hit the white;

[To LUCENTIO. [Exeunt PETRUCIO and KATH. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst shrew. Luc. 'T is a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so.

And, being a winner, God give you good night!

[Exeunt.

SCENE I.-Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace. Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, in mourning.

Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband. Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam;—you, sir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose worthiness would stir it up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

Count. What hope is there of his majesty's amendment? Laf. He hath abandoned his physician, madam; under whose practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

Count. This young gentlewoman had a father, (O, that had! how sad a passage 't is !) whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. 'Would, for the king's

sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of the king's disease.

Laf. How called you the man you speak of, madam?

Count. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.

Laf. He was excellent, indeed, madam; the king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality. Ber. What is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

Laf. A fistula, my lord.

Ber. I heard not of it before.

Laf. I would it were not notorious.—Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

Count. His sole child, my lord; and bequeathed to my overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education promises: her dispositions she inherits, which make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtuous and traitors too: in her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.

Laf. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.

Count. 'T is the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena-go to, no more; lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow, than to have.

Hel.

I do affect a sorrow, indeed, but I have it too.

Laf. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.

Hel.

If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

Ber. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.

Laf. How understand we that?

Count. Be thou blest, Bertram! and succeed thy father
In manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue,
Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness
Share with thy birth-right! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell.-My lord,

'T is an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,

Count. Heaven bless him!-Farewell, Bertram. [Exit. Ber. The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts [to HELENA] be servants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

567 Laf. Farewell, pretty lady: You must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU.

Hel. O, were that all !-I think not on my father;
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

I have forgot him: my imagination
Carries no favour in 't but Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love. 'T was pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?

Enter PAROLLES.

One that goes with him: I love him for his sake;
And yet I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;

Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place when virtue's steely bones

Look bleak i' the cold wind: withal, full oft we see

Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

Par.

Save you, fair queen.

Hel. And you, monarch.

Par. No.

Hel. And no.

Hel. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a question: Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it against him?

Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the defence, yet is weak: unfold to us some warlike resistance.

Par. There is none: man, sitting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up!—Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up inen?

Par. Virginity, being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase;