The adapting of Shakespeare’s play that seems to have occurred early in its career foreshadows its later history on the stage. Seven versions appeared during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, culminating in David Garrick’s Catharine and Petruchio, first performed in 1754. This version, omitting Christopher Sly and concentrating on the taming story, held the stage almost unchallenged until late in the nineteenth century. In various incarnations The Taming of the Shrew has always been popular on the stage, but its reputation as a robust comedy verging on farce has often obscured its more subtle and imaginative aspects, brutalizing Petruccio and trivializing Kate. The Induction, finely written, establishes a fundamentally serious concern with the powers of persuasion to change not merely appearance but reality, and this theme is acted out at different levels in both strands of the subsequent action.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
In the Induction
CHRISTOPHER SLY, beggar and tinker
A HOSTESS
A LORD
BARTHOLOMEW, his page
HUNTSMEN
SERVANTS
PLAYERS
In the play-within-the-play
BAPTISTA Minola, a gentleman of Padua
KATHERINE, his elder daughter
BIANCA, his younger daughter
PETRUCCIO, a gentleman of Verona, suitor of Katherine
GREMIO, a rich old man of Padua, suitor of Bianca
HORTENSIO, another suitor, who disguises himself as Licio, a
teacher
LUCENTIO, from Pisa, who disguises himself as Cambio, a teacher
VINCENTIO, Lucentio’s father
A PEDANT (schoolmaster), from Mantua
A WIDOW
A TAILOR
A HABERDASHER
An OFFICER
SERVINGMEN, including NATHANIEL, PHILIP, JOSEPH, and PETER
Other servants of Baptista and Petruccio
The Taming of the Shrew
Induction 1 Enter Christopher Sly the beggar, and the Hostess
SLY I’ll feeze you, in faith.
HOSTESS A pair of stocks, you rogue.
SLY You’re a baggage. The Slys are no rogues. Look in the Chronicles—we came in with Richard Conqueror, therefore paucas palabras, let the world slide. Sessa!
HOSTESS You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?
SLY No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy! Go to thy cold bed and warm thee.
HOSTESS I know my remedy, I must go fetch the headborough. 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.
He falls asleep.
Horns sound. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his train
LORD
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds.
Breathe Merriman—the poor cur is embossed—
And couple Clowder with the deep-mouthed brach.
Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
FIRST HUNTSMAN
Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord.
He cried upon it at the merest loss,
And twice today picked 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.
Tomorrow I intend to hunt again.
FIRST HUNTSMAN I will, my lord.
LORD (seeing Sly)
What’s here? One dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
SECOND HUNTSMAN
He breathes, my lord. Were he not warmed with ale
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.
LORD
O monstrous beast! How like a swine he lies.
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image.
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
What think you: if he were conveyed to bed,
Wrapped in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes—
Would not the beggar then forget himself?
FIRST HUNTSMAN
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.
SECOND HUNTSMAN
It would seem strange unto him when he waked.
LORD
Even as a flatt‘ring dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up, and manage well the jest.
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures.
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet.
Procure me music ready when he wakes
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 honour will command?
Let one attend him with a silver basin