The arden shakespeare co.., p.456
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 456
Then gave I her – so tutor’d by my art –
A sleeping potion, which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
245
The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo
That he should hither come as this dire night
To help to take her from her borrow’d grave,
Being the time the potion’s force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
250
Was stay’d by accident, and yesternight
Return’d my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking
Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault,
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell
255
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
But when I came, some minute ere the time
Of her awakening, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth
260
And bear this work of heaven with patience,
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb
And she, too desperate, would not go with me
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
265
Her Nurse is privy; and if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific’d some hour before his time
Unto the rigour of severest law.
PRINCE We still have known thee for a holy man.
270
Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?
BALTHASAR
I brought my master news of Juliet’s death,
And then in post he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father
275
And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not and left him there.
PRINCE Give me the letter, I will look on it.
Where is the County’s Page that rais’d the Watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
280
PAGE He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb
And by and by my master drew on him,
And then I ran away to call the Watch.
285
PRINCE This letter doth make good the Friar’s words:
Their course of love, the tidings of her death,
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die and lie with Juliet.
290
Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague,
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love;
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.
295
CAPULET O brother Montague, give me thy hand.
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.
MONTAGUE But I can give thee more,
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
300
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.
CAPULET As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.
PRINCE A glooming peace this morning with it brings:
305
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Exeunt.
310
The Taming of the Shrew
The text of The Taming of the Shrew printed in the First Folio in 1623 as the eleventh of the comedies stands in close, but ill-defined, relation to a play printed in 1594 with the similar title of The Taming of a Shrew. Once regarded as Shakespeare’s source for The Shrew, A Shrew is perhaps better understood as a garbled and abbreviated adaptation of it in which the ‘taming’ plot follows very similar lines and includes verbal reminiscences, the ‘Bianca’plot is radically rewritten and draws heavily on quotations from Marlowe’s plays, and the framing device of Sly is sustained to the end of the play, where it affords an ironic epilogue in which Sly, sober, sets off home to tame his wife too. The likely period of composition of The Shrew is between about 1590 and 1594.
Shrew-taming stories and ballads, originating in folk-tales, were widely known in the sixteenth century and no single original for the play has been identified. Similarly, the device of gulling a beggar into the belief that he is a king or lord is an ancient and widespread narrative motif, best known today from The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment. The story of Bianca and her suitors has an immediate dramatic source in Supposes (1566), George Gascoigne’s English version of a prose comedy, I Suppositi (1509), by Lodovico Ariosto. The skilful weaving of these three into a complex action is among the play’s notable achievements.
The Taming of the Shrew has had a long and successful stage history, both in its full form and in successive adaptations and abridgements, of which David Garrick’s Catherine and Petruchio (1756) had the longest life. The play shares with The Merchant of Venice the unhappy distinction of giving general offence to modern sensibilities. However, Shakespeare’s portrayal of the ‘taming’ of Katherina tones down the coarseness and physicalviolence of contemporary analogues, substituting a course of psychological homeopathy to cure her of her shrewishness. A feminist repartee was delivered as early as 1611 by John Fletcher in his comedy The Woman’s Prize, or the Tamer Tamed. In it, Petruchio is subjected to four acts of frustration and humiliation by a second wife, Maria (who is evidently acquainted with the Lysistrata of Aristophanes), before wounded male pride is restored at the end by her voluntary reversion to wifely good behav-iour.
The modern response of indignation at the taming plot is understandable – even inevitable – but it runs the risk of ignoring the wholly speculative and fictional scheme of things in which Shakespeare’s ‘supposes’ –hypothetical propositions about men and women as much as disguised or substituted characters – are presented for the entertainment of Sly and of ourselves. Katherina and Petruchio are at once differentiated from the rest of the characters by force of personality and by an evident emotional compatibility: the roles have been relished by generations of star performers, among them Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor on film. Their interchanges anticipate the ‘merry war’ of Beatrice and Benedick, both in their witty surface and in the underlying seriousness of the tussle for power in marriage. Sly’s disappearance at the end of the first act of the Folio text is perplexing: some modern productions have made effective use of his later interventions borrowed from A Shrew. The disappearance of Sly leaves the end of the play more open to the various reactions of an audience, whereas his epilogue can increase a sense of that ending as no more than a male fantasy of unattainable control.
The Arden text is based on the 1623 First Folio.
LIST OF ROLES
INDUCTION
Christopher SLY
a tinker
HOSTESS
LORD
PAGE, HUNTSMEN and SERVANTS
attending on the lord
A company of PLAYERS
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
BAPTISTA Minola
a rich citizen of Padua
KATHERINA
the Shrew, elder daughter of Baptista
PETRUCHIO
a gentleman of Verona, suitor to Katherina
GRUMIO
Petruchio’s personal servant
CURTIS
Petruchio’s chief servant at his country house
TAILOR
HABERDASHER
Five other SERVANTS of Petruchio
BIANCA
younger daughter of Baptista
GREMIO
rich old citizen of Padua, suitor to Bianca
HORTENSIO
a gentleman of Padua, suitor to Bianca
LUCENTIO
a gentleman of Pisa, suitor to Bianca
TRANIO
personal servant to Lucentio
BIONDELLO
servant to Lucentio
VINCENTIO
rich citizen of Pisa, father of Lucentio
PEDANT
of Mantua
WIDOW
SERVANTS
attending on Baptista
Ind.1 Enter CHRISTOPHER SLY and the Hostess.
SLY I’ll feeze you, in faith.
HOSTESS A pair of stocks, you rogue.
SLY Y’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!
5
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 thirdborough. Exit.
10
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.]
Wind horns. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his train.
LORD
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds.
15
Breathe 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?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.
20
1 HUNTSMAN
Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord.
He cried upon it at the merest loss,
And twice today 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,
25
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well, and look unto them all.
Tomorrow I intend to hunt again.
1 HUNTSMAN I will, my lord.
LORD
What’s here? One dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe?
30
2 HUNTSMAN
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 he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
35
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,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?
40
1 HUNTSMAN
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.
2 HUNTSMAN
It would seem strange unto him when he wak’d.
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,
45
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.
50
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
Full of rose-water and bestrew’d with flowers,
55
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.
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
60
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.
65
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.
1 HUNTSMAN
My lord, I warrant you we will play our part
As he shall think by our true diligence
He is no less than what we say he is.
70
LORD Take him up gently, and to bed with him,
And each one to his office when he wakes.
Sly is carried off. Sound trumpets.
Sirrah, go see what trumpet ’tis that sounds –
Exit Servingman.
Belike some noble gentleman that means,
Travelling some journey, to repose him here.
75
Enter Servingman.
How now? Who is it?
SERVINGMAN An’t please your honour, players
That offer service to your lordship.
