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speak to thee plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favors, they do always reason themselves out again. What a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love? speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

Kath. Is it possible dat I sould love de 27 enemy of France? 179 K. Hen. No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love the friend of France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine. Kath. I cannot tell vat is dat.

K. Hen. No, Kate? I will tell thee in French; which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi,-let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed !-donc votre est France et vous êtes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French: I shall never move thee in French. unless it be to laugh at

me.

Kath. Sauf votre honneur, le François que vous parlez, il est meilleur que l'Anglois lequel je parle. 301

K. Hen. No, faith, is't not, Kate: but thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely, must needs be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English, canst thou love me? Kath. I cannot tell.

K. Hen. Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I'll ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me and at night, when you come into your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about me; and I know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you love with your heart but, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good sol

dier-breeder: shall not thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard? shall we not? what sayest thou, my fair flower-de-luce?

Kath. I do not know dat.

K. Hen. No; 'tis hereafter to know, b now to promise: do but now promise, Kate you will endeavor for your French part such a boy; and for my English moiety tak the word of a king and a bachelor. How at swer you, la plus belle Katharine du monde mon très cher et devin déesse ?

Kath. Your majestee ave fausse Fremd enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle da is en France.

K. Hen. Now, fie upon my false French By mine honor, in true English, I love the Kate by which honor I dare not swear the lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor an untempering effect of my visage. Now, shrew my father's ambition! he was thinkin of civil wars when he got me : therefore wa I created with a stubborn outside, with a aspect of iron, that, when I come to wo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, th elder I wax, the better I shall appear: i. comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, be ter and better and therefore tell me, m fair Katharine, will you have me? Put o your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts. your heart with the looks of an empress to me by the hand, and say 'Harry of Englan I am thine:' which word thou shalt no soct er bless mine ear withal, but I will tell t aloud England is thine, Ireland is th France is thine, and Harry Plantagenet thine; who, though I speak it before i face, if he be not fellow with the best kin thou shalt find the best king of good fellow Come, your answer in broken music; for th voice is music and thy English broken; the fore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy m to me in broken English; wilt thou have Kath. Dat is as it sall please de roi père.

K. Hen. Nay, it will please him well, Kat it shall please him, Kate.

Kath. Den it sall also content me.

K. Hen. Upon that I kiss your hand, an call you my queen.

Kath. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, sez ma foi, je ne veux point que vous ab siez votre grandeur en baisant la main d'e de votre seigneurie indigne serviteur; cusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon très-puiss seigneur.

K. Hen. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate Kath. Les dames et demoiselles pour & baisées devant leur noces, il n'est pas la tume de France.

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Alice. Qui, vraiment.

K. Hen. O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding. [Kissing her.] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

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Re-enter the FRENCH KING and his QUEEN, BURGUNDY, and other Lords.

Bur. God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you our princess English?

K. Hen. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her; and that is good English.

Bur. Is she not apt?

K. Hen. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my rendition is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in his true likeness.

Bur. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up ove in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her then, being a maid yet rosed over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the aparance of a naked blind boy in her naked eing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to.

K. Hen. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

Bur. They are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do. 430

K. Hen. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

Bur. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.

K. Hen. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the

fly, your cousin, in the latter end and she must be blind too.

Bur. As love is, my lord, before it loves.

K. Hen. It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way.

Fr. King. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that war hath never entered.

K. Hen. Shall Kate be my wife?
Fr. King. So please you.

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K. Hen. I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will.

Fr. King. We have consented to all terms

of reason.

K. Hen. Is't so, my lords of England?

West. The king hath granted every article: His daughter first, and then in sequel all, 461 According to their firm proposed natures.

Exe. Only he hath not yet subscribed this: Where your majesty demands, that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your highness in this form and with this addition in French, Notre trèscher fils Henri, Roi d'Angleterre, Héritier de France; and thus in Latin, Præclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliæ, et Hæres Franciæ.

Fr. King. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied,

But your request shall make me let it pass.
K. Hen. I pray you then, in love and dear

alliance,

Let that one article rank with the rest;
And thereupon give me your daughter.
Fr. King. Take her, fair son, and from her
blood raise up

Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores
look pale

With envy of each other's happiness, May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunction

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THE TAMING OF
OF THE SHREW.

(WRITTEN ABOUT 1597.)

INTRODUCTION.

This comedy first appeared in the folio of 1623, but it is in some way closely connected with a play published in 1594, and bearing the almost identical title, The Taming of A Shrew. Pope was of the opinion that Shakespeare wrote both plays, but this is hardly plausible. The play in the folio is certainly an enlargement and alteration of the earlier play, and it only remains to ask, was Shakespare the sole reviser and adapter, or did his task consist of adding and altering certain scenes, so as to render yet more amusing and successful an enlarged version of the play of 1594, already made by some unknown hand? The last seems upon the whole the opinion best supported by the interal evidence. In The Taming of the Shrew three parts may be distinguished: (1) The humorous Induction, in which Sly, the drunken tinker, is the chief person; (2) A comedy of character, the Shrew and her tamer, Petruchio, being the hero and heroine; (3) A comedy of intrigue-the story of Bianca and her rival lovers. Now the old play of 4 Shrew contains, in a rude form, the scenes of the Induction and the chief scenes in which Petruchio and Katharina (named by the original writer Ferando and Kate) appear; but nothing in the old play corresponds with the intrigues of Bianca's disguised lovers. It is, however, in the scenes concerned with these intrigues that Shakespeare's and is least apparent. It may be said that Shakespeare's genius goes in and out with the person of Katharina. We would therefore conjecturally assign the intrigue-comedy to the adapter of the old play, reserving for Shakespeare a title to those scenes-in the main enlarged from the play of A brew-in which Katharina, Petruchio, and Grumio are speakers. Turning this statement into gures we find that Shakespeare's part in The Taming of the Shrew is comprised in the following ortions: Induction; Act II., Sc. I., L. 169-326; Act III., Sc. II., L. 1-125, and 151-211; Act IV., Se. 1. 11. and IIL; Act V., Sc. 11., L. 1-180. Such a division, it must be borne in mind, is no more than a coneture, but it seems to be suggested and fairly indicated by the style of the several parts of the nedy. However this may be, it is clear that Shakespeare cared little for the other charnea in comparison with Sly, Katharina, and Petruchio. The play is full of energy and busing movement; and the characters of Katharina and Petruchio in particular, are firmly and ely drawn, the scenes in which they appear, though infinitely amusing, never quite passing into wnright farce. Widely separated dates have been assigned for The Taming of the Shrew, from to 1606. The best portions are in the manner of Shakespeare's comedies of the second period; nd attributing the Bianca intrigue-comedy to a writer intermediate between the author of the play Shrew and Shakespeare, there is no difficulty in supposing that the Shakespeare scenes were ritten about 1597. Fletcher wrote a humorous continuation of Shakespeare's play, entitled The Foman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed, in which Petruchio reappears.

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INDUCTION.

SCENE I. Before an alehouse on a heath.

Enter HOSTESS and SLY.

Sly. I'll pheeze you, in faith.
Host. A pair of stocks, you rogue!

Sly. Ye are a baggage: the Slys are no rogues; look in the chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore paucas pallabris; let the world slide: sessa!

Host. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?

Sly. No, not a denier. Go by, Jeronimy: go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

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Host. I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.

[Exit. Sly. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him by law: I'll not budge an inch, boy: let him come, and kindly. [Falls asleep. Horns winded. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his train.

Lord. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds:

+Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd; And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd

brach.

Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault? 20
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
First Hun. Why, Belman is as good as he,
my lord;

He cried upon it at the merest loss
And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent:
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

Lord. Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,

I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well and look unto them all :
To-morrow I intend to hunt again.
First Hun. I will, my lord.

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Lord. What's here? one dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?

Sec. Hun. He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale,

This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly. Lord O monstrous beast! how like a swine [image!

he lies!

Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine Sirs, I will practice on this drunken man. What think you, if he were convey'd to bed, Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his

fingers,

A most delicious banquet by his bed, And brave attendants near him when he wakes, 40

Would not the beggar then forget himself? First Hun. Believe me, lord, I think he

cannot choose.

Sec. Hun. It would seem strange unto him when he waked.

Lord. Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.

Then take him up and manage well the jest:

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sweet:

Procure me music ready when he wakes, 50
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight
And with a low submissive reverence
Say What is it your honor will command ?
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers;
Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
And say Will't please your lordship cool your
hands?'

Some one be ready with a costly suit
And ask him what apparel he will wear; 60
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
And that his lady mourns at his disease:
Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
+And when he says he is, say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do and do it kindly, gentle sirs:
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.
First Hun. My lord, I warrant you we wil
play our part,

7

As he shall think by our true diligence
He is no less than what we say he is.
Lord. Take him up gently and to bed wit
him;

And each one to his office when he wakes.

[Some bear out Sly. A trumpet sounds Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds [Exit Servingma Belike, some noble gentleman that means, Travelling some journey, to repose him her Re-enter Servingman.

How now! who is it?
Serv.
An't please your honor, playe
That offer service to your lordship.
Lord. Bid them come near.
Enter Players.

Now, fellows, you are welcom
Players. We thank your honor.
Lord. Do you intend to stay with me t
night?

A Player. So please your lordship to acc our duty.

I:

Lord. With all my heart. This fellow I

member,

Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son: 'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman

well:

I have forgot your name; but, sure, that t Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.

A Player. I think 'twas Soto that y

honor means.

Lord. 'Tis very true: thou didst it ex lent.

Well, you are come to me in happy time; The rather for I have some sport in hand Wherein your cunning can assist me m There is a lord will hear you play to-night

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