D fol re, one cliff, but two notes have I.
E la mi, show pity, or I die.

Call you this Gamut ? tut, I like it not;
Old fashions please me best; I'm not so nice
To change true rules for odd inventions.

Enter a Servant.

Serv. Mistress, your father prays you leave your

books,

And help to dress your sister's chamber up;

You know, to-morrow is the wedding-day.

Bian. Farewel, sweet masters, both; I must be gone.

[Exit.

Luc. Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.

[Exit.

Hor. But I have cause to pry into this pedant, Methinks, he looks as tho' he was in love: Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble, To cast thy wandring eyes on every Stale; Seize thee, who lift; if once I find thee ranging, Hortenfio will be quit with thee by changing. (Exit.

1

SCENE II.

Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio, Catharina, Lu-
centio, Bianca, and attendants.

Bap. Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed day
That Cath'rine and Petruchio should be married;
And yet we hear not of our fon-in-law.
What will be faid? what mockery will it be,

Old fashions please me beft;
I'm not so nice

To change true Rules for new Inventions.] This is Sense and the Meaning of the Passage; but the Reading of the Second

Verse, for all that, is fophifti-
cated. The genuine Copies all
concur in Reading,

To change true Rules for old
Inventions.

THEOBALD.

1

To

1

1

OF THE SHRE W.

To want the Bridegroom, when the Priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage?

What says Lucentio to this shame of ours ?

51

Cath. No shame, but mine; I must, forsooth, be

forc'd

To give my hand oppos'd against my heart,
Unto a mad-brain Rudesby, full of spleen ;
Who woo'd in haste, and means to wed at leisure.

:

I told you, I, he was a frantick fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour :
And to be noted for a merry man,
He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite, yes, and proclaim the banns;
Yet never means to wed, where he hath woo'd.
Now must the world point at poor Catharine,
And say, lo! there is mad Petruchio's wife,
If it would please him come and marry her.

Tra. Patience, good Catharine, and Baptista too;
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well;
Whatever fortune stays him from his word.
Tho' he be blunt, I know him passing wife:
Tho' he be merry, yet withal he's honest.

Cath. Would Catharine had never seen him tho'!
[Exit. weeping.

Bap. Go, girl; I cannot blame thee now to weep;
For fuch an injury would vex a Saint,
Much more a Shrew of thy impatient humour.

SCENE III.

Enter Biondello.

Bion. Master, Master; old news, and such news as

you never heard of.

Bap. Is it new and old teo? how may that be?

8 Full of spleen.] That is, full of humour, caprice, and incon

stancy.

Bion. Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's

coming?

Bap. Is he come

Bion. Why, no, Sir,

Bap. What then?

Bion. He is coming.

Bap. When will he be here?

Bion. When he stands where I am, and fees you

there.

Tra. But, fay, what to thine old news?

Bion. Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old jerkin, a pair of old breeches thrice turn'd; a pair of boots that have been candle-cafes, one buckled, another lac'd: an old rusty sword ta'en out of the town-armory, with a broken hilt, and chapeless, with two broken points; his horfe hipp'd with an old mothy saddle, the stirrups of no kindred; befides, pofsest with the glanders, and like to mose in the chine, troubled with the lampasse, if ected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped with spavins, raied with the yellows, paft cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, waid in the back and shoulder-shotten, near-legg'd before, and with a halfcheck't bit, anda headstall of sheep's leather, which being restrain'd, to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burft, and now repair'd with knots; one girt fix times piec'd, and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her name, fairly fet down in studs, and here and there piec'd with packthread. Bap. Who comes with him?

Bion. Oh, Sir, his lackey, for all the world capari

A pair of boots one buckled, another laced; an old rusty fword ta'en out of the town-armory, with a broken bilt, and chapeless, with two broken points.] How a sword should have two broken points I cannot tell. There

is, I think, a transposition
caused by the seeming relation of
point to fword. I read, a pair
of boots, one buckled, another
laced with two broken points;
an old rusty Sword -7
hilt, and chapeless.

1

with a a broken

fon'd

i

售

i

I

fon'd like the horse, with a linnen stock on one leg, and a kersey boot-hofe on the other, garter'd with a red and blue lift, an old hat, and the humour of forty fancies prickt up in't for a feather: a monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a christian footboy, or a gentleman's lackey.

Tra. 'Tis fome odd humour pricks him to this fashion;

Yet fometimes he goes but mean apparell'd.

Bap. I am glad he is come, howsoever he comes.

Bion. Why, Sir, he comes not.

Bap. Didst thou not say, he comes?
Bion. Who? that Petruchio came not.

Bap. Ay, that Petruchio came.

Bion. No, Sir; I say, his horse comes with him on

his back.

Bap. Why, that's all one.

Bion. Nay, by St. Jamy, I hold you a penny,

A horfe and a man is more than one, and yet not

:

many.

An old hat, and the humour of forty fancies prickt up in't for a feather: This was some ballad or drollery of that time, which the Poet here ridicules, by making Petruchio prick it up in his foot-boy's old hat for a feather. His speakers are perpetually quoting scraps and stanzas of old Ballads, and often very obscurely; for, fo well are they adapted to the occafion, that they feem of a piece with the reft. In Shakespear's time, the kingdom was over-run with these doggrel compositions. And he feems to have born them a very particular grudge. He frequently ridicules both them and

:

their makers with exquifite humour. In Much ado about nothing, he makes Benedict say, Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I get again with drinking, prick out my eyes with a ballad maker's pen. As the bluntness of it would make the execution of it extremely painful. And again in Troilus and Creffida, Pandarus in his distress, having repeated a very stupid stanza from an old ballad, says, with the highest humour, There never was a truer rhyme; let us cast away nothing, for we may live to have need of Such a verse. We See it, we fee it.

E3

WARBURTON.

SCENE

L

SCENE IV.

1

Enter Petruchio and Grumio fantastically habited.

Pet. Come, where be these gallants? who is at

home?

Bap. You're welcome, Sir.
Pet. And yet I come not well.

Bap. And yet you halt not.

Tra. Not so well 'parell'd, as I wish you were.

Pet. Were it better, I should rush in thus.

But where is Kate? where is my lovely bride?
How does my Father? Gentles, methinks, you

frown:

And wherefore gaze this goodly company,
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet, or unusual prodigy ?

1

Bap. Why, Sir, you know this is your wedding

day:

First, were we sad, fearing you would not come;
Now, fadder, that you come so unprovided.
Fy, doff this habit, shame to your eftate,
An eye-fore to our folemn festival.

Tra. And tell us what occasion of import
Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife,
And fent you hither fo unlike yourself?

Pet, Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:
Sufficeth, I am come to keep my word,
Tho' in some part enforced to digress *,
Which at more leifure I will fo excuse,
As you shall well be fatisfied withal.
But, where is Kate? I stay too long from her;
The morning wears.; 'tis time, we were at church.
Tra. See not your bride in these unreverent robes;
Go to my chamber, put on cloaths of mine.

2 To digress] To deviate from any promise.

I

Pet.

T