Padua. A public Place.
 Flourish. Enter LUCENTIO and his man, TRANIO.

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 armed
	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, renownd for grave citizens,
	Gave me my being - and my father first,
	A merchant of great traffic through the world,
	Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii.
	Vincentio'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 checks
	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.

Lucentio	Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
	If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
	We could at once put us in readiness,
	And take a lodging fit to entertain
	Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
	But stay awhile - what company is this?

Tranio	Master, some show to welcome us to town.
										[LUCENTIO and TRANIO stand by.

       Enter BAPTISTA with his two daughters, KATHERINA and BIANCA;
          GREMIO, a pantaloon; and HORTENSIO, suitor to Bianca.

Baptista 	Gentlemen, importune me no further,
	For how I firmly am resolved you know;
	That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
	Before I have a husband for the elder.
	If either of you both love Katherina,
	Because I know you well and love you well,
	Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.

Gremio	To cart her rather: - she's too rough for me.
	There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?

Katherina	[To BAPTISTA.] I pray you, sir, is it your will
	To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

Hortensio	'Mates', maid! How mean you that? No mates for you
	Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.

Katherina	I' faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:
	Iwis it is not halfway to her heart;
	But, if it were, doubt not her care should be
	To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool,
	And paint your face, and use you like a fool.

Hortensio	From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!

Gremio	And me too, good Lord!

Tranio	[Aside.] Husht, master; here's some good pastime toward.
	That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.

Lucentio	[Aside.] But in the other's silence do I see
	Maid's mild behaviour and sobriety.
	Peace, Tranio!

Tranio	[Aside.] Well said, master. Mum! - and gaze your fill.

Baptista	Gentlemen, that I may soon make good
	What I have said - Bianca, get you in.
	And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,
	For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.

Katherina	A pretty peat! It is best
	Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.

Bianca	Sister, content you in my discontent.
	Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
	My books and instruments shall be my company,
	On them to look and practise by myself.

Lucentio	[Aside.] Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak.

Hortensio	Signor Baptista, will you be so strange?
	Sorry am I that our good will effects
	Bianca's grief.

Gremio						Why, will you mew her up,
	Signor Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
	And make her bear the penance of her tongue?

Baptista	Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolved.
	Go in, Bianca.
														[Exit BIANCA.
	And for I know she taketh most delight
	In music, instruments, and poetry,
	Schoolmasters will I keep within my house,
	Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
	Or Signor Gremio, you, know any such,
	Prefer them hither; for to cunning men
	I will be very kind, and liberal
	To mine own children in good bringing-up.
	And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;
	For I have more to commune with Bianca.
														[Exit.

Katherina	Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not?
	What, shall I be appointed hours, as though, belike,
	I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!
														[Exit.

Gremio	You may go to the devil's dam. Your gifts are so good, 
	here's none will hold you. Their love is not so great, 
	Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it 
	fairly out; our cake's dough on both sides. Farewell. Yet, 
	for the love I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means 
	light on a fit man to teach her that wherein she delights, I 
	will wish him to her father.

Hortensio	So will I, Signor Gremio. But a word, I pray. Though the 
	nature of our quarrel yet never brooked parle, know now, 
	upon advice, it toucheth us both - that we may yet again 
	have access to our fair mistress and be happy rivals in 
	Bianca's love - to labour and effect one thing specially.

Gremio	What's that, I pray?

Hortensio	Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

Gremio	A husband? A devil.

Hortensio	I say a husband.

Gremio	I say a devil. Think'st thou, Hortensio, though her father 
	be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to 
	hell?

Hortensio	Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine to 
	endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in 
	the world, an a man could light on them, would take her with 
	all faults - and money enough.

Gremio	I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this 
	condition: to be whipped at the high-cross every morning.

Hortensio	Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten apples. 
	But come, since this bar in law makes us friends, it shall 
	be so far forth friendly maintained, till, by helping 
	Baptista's eldest daughter to a husband, we set his youngest 
	free for a husband, and then have to't afresh. Sweet Bianca! 
	Happy man be his dole. He that runs fastest gets the ring. 
	How say you, Signor Gremio?

Gremio	I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse in 
	Padua to begin his wooing, that would thoroughly woo her, 
	wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her. Come on.
										 [Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO.

Tranio	I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
	That love should of a sudden take such hold?

Lucentio	O Tranio, till I found it to be true,
	I never thought it possible or likely.
	But see, while idly I stood looking on,
	I found the effect of love in idleness;
	And now in plainness do confess to thee,
	That art to me as secret and as dear
	As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was,
	Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
	If I achieve not this young modest girl.
	Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst:
	Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

Tranio	Master, it is no time to chide you now;
	Affection is not rated from the heart.
	If love have touched you, nought remains but so,
	Redime te captum quam queas minimo.

Lucentio	Gramercies, lad. Go forward, this contents:
	The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.

Tranio	Master, you looked so longly on the maid,
	Perhaps you marked not what's the pith of all.

Lucentio	O yes; I saw sweet beauty in her face,
	Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
	That made great Jove to humble him to her hand,
	When with his knees he kissed the Cretan strand.

Tranio	Saw you no more? Marked you not how her sister
	Began to scold and raise up such a storm
	That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?

Lucentio	Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,
	And with her breath she did perfume the air.
	Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

Tranio	Nay, then 'tis time to stir him from his trance.
	I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,
	Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:
	Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd,
	That till the father rid his hands of her,
	Master, your love must live a maid at home;
	And therefore has he closely mewed her up,
	Because she will not be annoyed with suitors.

Lucentio	Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!
	But art thou not advised he took some care
	To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?

Tranio	Ay, marry, am I, sir; and now 'tis plotted.

Lucentio	I have it, Tranio.

Tranio						Master, for my hand,
	Both our inventions meet and jump in one.

Lucentio	Tell me thine first.

Tranio							You will be schoolmaster,
	And undertake the teaching of the maid-
	That's your device.

Lucentio						It is. May it be done?

Tranio	Not possible; for who shall bear your part,
	And be in Padua here Vincentio's son,
	Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,
	Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?

Lucentio	Basta; content thee, for I have it full.
	We have not yet been seen in any house,
	Nor can we be distinguished by our faces
	For man or master. Then it follows thus:
	Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,
	Keep house, and port, and servants, as I should;
	I will some other be, some Florentine,
	Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.
	'Tis hatched, and shall be so. Tranio, at once
	Uncase thee, take my coloured hat and cloak.
	When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;
	But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.
														[They exchange clothes.
Tranio	So had you need.
	In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
	And I am tied to be obedient-
	For so your father charged me at our parting,
	'Be serviceable to my son' quoth he,
	Although I think 'twas in another sense-
	I am content to be Lucentio,
	Because so well I love Lucentio.

Lucentio	Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves;
	And let me be a slave, t'achieve that maid
	Whose sudden sight hath thralled my wounded eye.

                             Enter BIONDELLO.

	Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?

Biondello	Where have I been! Nay, how now, where are you?
	Master, has my fellow Tranio stol'n your clothes,
	Or you stol'n his - or both? Pray, what's the news?

Lucentio	Sirrah, come hither. 'Tis no time to jest,
	And therefore frame your manners to the time.
	Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,
	Puts my apparel and my countenance on,
	And I for my escape have put on his;
	For in a quarrel since I came ashore
	I killed a man, and fear I was descried.
	Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
	While I make way from hence to save my life.
	You understand me?

Biondello							I, sir? Ne'er a whit.

Lucentio	And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth;
	Tranio is changed into Lucentio.

Biondello	The better for him. Would I were so too.

Tranio	So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
	That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.
	But, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master's, I advise
	You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies.
	When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio,
	But in all places else your master Lucentio.

Lucentio	Tranio, let's go.
	One thing more rests, that thyself execute-
	To make one among these wooers. If thou ask me why,
	Sufficeth my reasons are both good and weighty.
														[Exeunt.
                       The Presenters above speaks.

1st Servant	My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.

Sly	Yes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter, surely. Comes there 
	any more of it?

Page	My lord, 'tis but begun.

Sly	'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady. Would 
	'twere done!
														[They sit and mark.
