Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (78 page)

BIONDELLO, servant to Lucentio

GRUMIO, servant to Petruchio

KATHARINA, the shrew, older daughter to Baptista

BIANCA, younger daughter to Baptista

WIDOW

TAILOR

HABERDASHER

ACT I. Scene I (1–244).

T
he Taming of the Shrew
begins with an Induction, which presents characters that are independent from the play itself in an effort to set a literal stage for the story to come. Christopher Sly, a poor drunkard who has caused a ruckus at a local watering hole, unceremoniously passes out as the tavern mistress is chiding him for his behavior. A rich Lord walks into the tavern and, amused to find Sly lacquered with alcohol and unconscious, decides to play a trick on him. The Lord has his attendants bring Sly to the nicest room in the inn, bathe him, dress him in the finest clothes, and adorn him with jewelry. Upon his waking, they are instructed to convince Sly that he is a wealthy nobleman who has been asleep for fifteen years.

As the plan unfolds and the servants prepare for Sly to rouse from his drunken sleep, a troop of actors arrives at the tavern to perform for the Lord. Finding this to be opportune, the Lord convinces the actors to perform for “nobleman” Sly and to do their best not to betray their amusement at any of his uncouth behavior. He goes on to instruct his servant, Bartholomew, to dress up as Sly’s distraught wife who will fawn over him once he wakes. Sly awakes sputtering for his next ale, belligerently expressing his confusion about the servants attending to him and the wealthy treatment. The Lord and his attendants tell Sly of his over-the-top and lavish lifestyle, and that he has come down with a hallucinatory illness that makes him think he is a peasant, and he slowly begins to believe them. He quickly embraces his status, going so far as to make sexual inferences to his faux wife. The attendants inform him that the actors are there, and that doctors have prescribed a comedy for his viewing, which will prevent him from going insane again. Sly and his noble wife cozy up and begin to watch the actors perform
The Taming of the Shrew.

LUCENTIO

Tranio, since for the great desire I had

To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,

I am arrived for fruitful Lombardy,

The pleasant garden of great Italy;

And by my father’s love and leave am arm’d

With his good will and thy good company,

My trusty servant, well approved in all,

Here let us breathe and haply institute

A course of learning and ingenious studies.

Pisa renown’d for grave citizens

Gave me my being and my father first,

A merchant of great traffic through the world,

Vincetino come of Bentivolii.

Vincetino’s son brought up in Florence

It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,

To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:

And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,

Virtue and that part of philosophy

Will I apply that treats of happiness

By virtue specially to be achieved.

Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left

And am to Padua come, as he that leaves

A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep

And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

TRANIO

Mi perdonato, gentle master mine,

I am in all affected as yourself;

Glad that you thus continue your resolve

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.

Only, good master, while we do admire

This virtue and this moral discipline,

Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;

Or so devote to Aristotle’s cheques

As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured:

Balk logic with acquaintance that you have

And practise rhetoric in your common talk;

Music and poesy use to quicken you;

The mathematics and the metaphysics,

Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en:

In brief, sir, study what you most affect.