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The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1, Scene 2

William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

The story so far

In the last scene: Act 1, Scene 1

Lucentio arrives in Padua to study with his servant Tranio. Baptista refuses to let Bianca marry before her elder sister Katherina and seeks tutors for Bianca. Her suitors, Gremio and Hortensio, agree to find Katherina a husband. Lucentio falls in love with Bianca and plans to approach her as a tutor. He exchanges clothes with Tranio, who will impersonate him and join the suitors. Lucentio orders Biondello to serve Tranio as his master, claiming that the disguise protects him after killing a man. Watching the play, Sly says he wishes it were finished.

SCENE II. Padua. Before Hortensio’s house.

Enter Petruchio and his man Grumio.
PETRUCHIO
Verona, for a while I take my leave,To see my friends in Padua; but of allMy best beloved and approved friend,Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.
GRUMIO
Knock, sir? Whom should I knock? Is there any man has rebused your worship?
PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.
GRUMIO
Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you here, sir?
PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me at this gate;And rap me well, or I’ll knock your knave’s pate.
GRUMIO
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,And then I know after who comes by the worst.
PETRUCHIO
Will it not be?Faith, sirrah, and you’ll not knock, I’ll ring it;I’ll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.
He wrings Grumio by the ears.
GRUMIO
Help, masters, help! my master is mad.
PETRUCHIO
Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!
Enter Hortensio.
HORTENSIO
How now! what’s the matter? My old friend Grumio! and my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?
PETRUCHIO
Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?Con tutto il cuore ben trovato, may I say.
HORTENSIO
Alla nostra casa ben venuto; molto honorato signor mio Petruchio.Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound this quarrel.
GRUMIO
Nay, ’tis no matter, sir, what he ’leges in Latin. If this be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service, look you, sir, he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I see, two-and-thirty, a pip out? Whom would to God I had well knock’d at first, then had not Grumio come by the worst.
PETRUCHIO
A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,And could not get him for my heart to do it.
GRUMIO
Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these words plain: ‘Sirrah knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly’? And come you now with ‘knocking at the gate’?
PETRUCHIO
Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.
HORTENSIO
Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio’s pledge;Why, this’s a heavy chance ’twixt him and you,Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy galeBlows you to Padua here from old Verona?
PETRUCHIO
Such wind as scatters young men through the worldTo seek their fortunes farther than at home,Where small experience grows. But in a few,Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:Antonio, my father, is deceas’d,And I have thrust myself into this maze,Haply to wive and thrive as best I may;Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,And so am come abroad to see the world.
HORTENSIO
Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to theeAnd wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour’d wife?Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel;And yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich,And very rich: but th’art too much my friend,And I’ll not wish thee to her.
PETRUCHIO
Signior Hortensio, ’twixt such friends as weFew words suffice; and therefore, if thou knowOne rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife,As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewdAs Socrates’ Xanthippe or a worse,She moves me not, or not removes, at least,Affection’s edge in me, were she as roughAs are the swelling Adriatic seas:I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;If wealthily, then happily in Padua.
GRUMIO
Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is: why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot with ne’er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two-and-fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.
HORTENSIO
Petruchio, since we are stepp’d thus far in,I will continue that I broach’d in jest.I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wifeWith wealth enough, and young and beauteous;Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:Her only fault,—and that is faults enough,—Is, that she is intolerable curst,And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure,That, were my state far worser than it is,I would not wed her for a mine of gold.
PETRUCHIO
Hortensio, peace! thou know’st not gold’s effect:Tell me her father’s name, and ’tis enough;For I will board her, though she chide as loudAs thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.
HORTENSIO
Her father is Baptista Minola,An affable and courteous gentleman;Her name is Katherina Minola,Renown’d in Padua for her scolding tongue.
PETRUCHIO
I know her father, though I know not her;And he knew my deceased father well.I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;And therefore let me be thus bold with you,To give you over at this first encounter,Unless you will accompany me thither.
GRUMIO
I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O’ my word, and she knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding would do little good upon him. She may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so; why, that’s nothing; and he begin once, he’ll rail in his rope-tricks. I’ll tell you what, sir, and she stand him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and so disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.
HORTENSIO
Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,For in Baptista’s keep my treasure is:He hath the jewel of my life in hold,His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca,And her withholds from me and other more,Suitors to her and rivals in my love;Supposing it a thing impossible,For those defects I have before rehears’d,That ever Katherina will be woo’d:Therefore this order hath Baptista ta’en,That none shall have access unto BiancaTill Katherine the curst have got a husband.
GRUMIO
Katherine the curst!A title for a maid of all titles the worst.
HORTENSIO
Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,And offer me disguis’d in sober robes,To old Baptista as a schoolmasterWell seen in music, to instruct Bianca;That so I may, by this device at leastHave leave and leisure to make love to her,And unsuspected court her by herself.
GRUMIO
Here’s no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks lay their heads together!
Enter Gremio and Lucentio disguised, with books under his arm.
GRUMIO
Master, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?
HORTENSIO
Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love. Petruchio, stand by awhile.
GRUMIO
A proper stripling, and an amorous!
GREMIO
O! very well; I have perus’d the note.Hark you, sir; I’ll have them very fairly bound:All books of love, see that at any hand,And see you read no other lectures to her.You understand me. Over and besideSignior Baptista’s liberality,I’ll mend it with a largess. Take your papers too,And let me have them very well perfum’d;For she is sweeter than perfume itselfTo whom they go to. What will you read to her?
LUCENTIO
Whate’er I read to her, I’ll plead for you,As for my patron, stand you so assur’d,As firmly as yourself were still in place;Yea, and perhaps with more successful wordsThan you, unless you were a scholar, sir.
GREMIO
O! this learning, what a thing it is.
GRUMIO
O! this woodcock, what an ass it is.
PETRUCHIO
Peace, sirrah!
HORTENSIO
Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio!
GREMIO
And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.I promis’d to enquire carefullyAbout a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca;And by good fortune I have lighted wellOn this young man; for learning and behaviourFit for her turn, well read in poetryAnd other books, good ones, I warrant ye.
HORTENSIO
’Tis well; and I have met a gentlemanHath promis’d me to help me to another,A fine musician to instruct our mistress:So shall I no whit be behind in dutyTo fair Bianca, so belov’d of me.
GREMIO
Belov’d of me, and that my deeds shall prove.
GRUMIO
And that his bags shall prove.
HORTENSIO
Gremio, ’tis now no time to vent our love:Listen to me, and if you speak me fair,I’ll tell you news indifferent good for either.Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,Upon agreement from us to his liking,Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.
GREMIO
So said, so done, is well.Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?
PETRUCHIO
I know she is an irksome brawling scold;If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.
GREMIO
No, say’st me so, friend? What countryman?
PETRUCHIO
Born in Verona, old Antonio’s son.My father dead, my fortune lives for me;And I do hope good days and long to see.
GREMIO
O sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!But if you have a stomach, to’t a God’s name;You shall have me assisting you in all.But will you woo this wild-cat?
PETRUCHIO
Will I live?
GRUMIO
Will he woo her? Ay, or I’ll hang her.
PETRUCHIO
Why came I hither but to that intent?Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?Have I not in my time heard lions roar?Have I not heard the sea, puff’d up with winds,Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?Have I not in a pitched battle heardLoud ’larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets’ clang?And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue,That gives not half so great a blow to hearAs will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire?Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.
GRUMIO
For he fears none.
GREMIO
Hortensio, hark:This gentleman is happily arriv’d,My mind presumes, for his own good and yours.
HORTENSIO
I promis’d we would be contributors,And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe’er.
GREMIO
And so we will, provided that he win her.
GRUMIO
I would I were as sure of a good dinner.
Enter Tranio brave, and Biondello.
TRANIO
Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold,Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest wayTo the house of Signior Baptista Minola?
BIONDELLO
He that has the two fair daughters; is’t he you mean?
TRANIO
Even he, Biondello!
GREMIO
Hark you, sir, you mean not her to—
TRANIO
Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?
PETRUCHIO
Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.
TRANIO
I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let’s away.
LUCENTIO
Well begun, Tranio.
HORTENSIO
Sir, a word ere you go.Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?
TRANIO
And if I be, sir, is it any offence?
GREMIO
No; if without more words you will get you hence.
TRANIO
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as freeFor me as for you?
GREMIO
But so is not she.
TRANIO
For what reason, I beseech you?
GREMIO
For this reason, if you’ll know,That she’s the choice love of Signior Gremio.
HORTENSIO
That she’s the chosen of Signior Hortensio.
TRANIO
Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,Do me this right; hear me with patience.Baptista is a noble gentleman,To whom my father is not all unknown;And were his daughter fairer than she is,She may more suitors have, and me for one.Fair Leda’s daughter had a thousand wooers;Then well one more may fair Bianca have;And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one,Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.
GREMIO
What, this gentleman will out-talk us all.
LUCENTIO
Sir, give him head; I know he’ll prove a jade.
PETRUCHIO
Hortensio, to what end are all these words?
HORTENSIO
Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,Did you yet ever see Baptista’s daughter?
TRANIO
No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two,The one as famous for a scolding tongueAs is the other for beauteous modesty.
PETRUCHIO
Sir, sir, the first’s for me; let her go by.
GREMIO
Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules,And let it be more than Alcides’ twelve.
PETRUCHIO
Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,Her father keeps from all access of suitors,And will not promise her to any manUntil the elder sister first be wed;The younger then is free, and not before.
TRANIO
If it be so, sir, that you are the manMust stead us all, and me amongst the rest;And if you break the ice, and do this feat,Achieve the elder, set the younger freeFor our access, whose hap shall be to have herWill not so graceless be to be ingrate.
HORTENSIO
Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive;And since you do profess to be a suitor,You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,To whom we all rest generally beholding.
TRANIO
Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,And quaff carouses to our mistress’ health;And do as adversaries do in law,Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
GRUMIO, BIONDELLO
O excellent motion! Fellows, let’s be gone.
HORTENSIO
The motion’s good indeed, and be it so:—Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.
Exeunt.

Characters

Speaking

  • 21 speeches
  • 18 speeches
  • 18 speeches
  • 15 speeches
  • 11 speeches
  • 3 speeches

Mentioned

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Themes

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Questions on this scene

  • Reading

    What does Petruchio order Grumio to knock on?