While I make way from hence to save my life: Bion. I, sir? ne'er a whit. Luc. And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth; Tranio is chang'd into Lucentio. Bion. The better for him; 'Would I were so too! Tra. So would 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 com panies: When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio; 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." 1 Serv. 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 't were done! 4 So would 1,] The old copy has-could. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. 5 Malone. your master -] Old copy-you master. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. Malone. 6 good and weighty.] The division for the second Act of this play is neither marked in the folio nor quarto editions.Shakspeare seems to have meant the first Act to conclude here, where the speeches of the Tinker are introduced; though they have been hitherto thrown to the end of the first Act, according to a modern and arbitrary regulation. Steevens. 7 Exeunt.] Here in the old copy we have-"The Presenters above speak."-meaning Sly, &c. who were placed in a balcony raised at the back of the stage. After the words" Would it were done," the marginal direction is-They sit and mark. Malone. The same. SCENE II. Before Hortensio's House. Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO. Pet. Verona, for a while I take my leave, To see my friends in Padua; but, of all, My best beloved and approved friend, Hortensio; and, I trow, this is his house:Here, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say. Gru. Knock, sir! whom should I knock? is there any man has rebused your worship? Pet. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly. Gru. Knock you here,9 sir? why, sir, what am I sir, that I should knock you here, sir? Pet. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate, And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate. Gru. My master is grown quarrelsome: I should knock you first, And then I know after who comes by the worst. Pet. Will it not be? 'Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll wring it;1 I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it. 8 2 [He wrings GRU. by the ears. Gru. Help, masters, help! my master is mad. Pet. Now, knock when I bid you: sirrah! villain! Enter HORTENSIO. Hor. How now? what's the matter?-My old friend has rebused your worship?] What is the meaning of rebused? or is it a false print for abused? Tyrwhitt. 9 Knock you here,] Grumio's pretensions to wit have a strong resemblance to those of Dromio in The Comedy of Errors; and this circumstance makes it the more probable that these two plays were written at no great distance of time from each other. Malone. 1 wring it;] Here seems to be a quibble between ringing at a door, and wringing a man's ears. Steevens. 2 Help, masters,] The old copy reads-here; and in several other places in this play, mistress instead of masters. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. In the MSS. of our author's age, M was the common abbreviation of Master and Mistress. Hence the mistake. See The Merchant of Venice, Act V, 1600, and 1623: "What ho, M. [Master] Lorenzo, and M. [Mistress] Lorenzo." Malone. Grumio! and my good friend Petruchio!-How do you all at Verona? Pet. Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray? Con tutto il core bene trovato, may I say. Hor. Alla nostra casa bene venuto, Molto honorato signor mio Petruchio. Rise, Grumio, rise; we will compound this quarrel. Gru. Nay, 'tis no matter, what he 'leges in Latin.3If 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?4 Whom, 'would to God, I had well knock'd at first, Pet. A senseless villain!-Good Hortensio, I bade the rascal knock upon your gate, And could not get him for my heart to do it. Spake you not these words plain, Sirrah, knock me here, 3 what he 'leges in Latin.] i. e. I suppose, what he alleges in Latin. Petruchio has been just speaking Italian to Hortensio, which Grumio mistakes for the other language. Steevens. I cannot help suspecting that we should read-Nay, 'tis no matter what be leges in Latin, if this be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service. Look you, sir.-That is, 'Tis no matter what is law, if this be not a lawful cause," &c. Tyrwhitt. Tyrwhitt's amendment and explanation of this passage is evidently right. Mr. Steevens appears to have been a little absent when he wrote his note on it. He forgot that Italian was Grumio's native language, and that therefore he could not possibly mistake it for Latin. M. Mason. I am grateful to Mr. M. Mason for his hint, which may prove beneficial to me on some future occasion, though at the present moment it will not operate so forcibly as to change my opinion. I was well aware that Italian was Grumio's native language, but was not, nor am now, certain of our author's attention to this circumstance, because his Italians necessarily speak English throughout the play, with the exception of a few colloquial sentences. So little regard does our author pay to petty proprieties, that as often as Signior, the Italian appellation, does not occur to him, or suit the measure of his verse, he gives us in its room, "Sir Vincentio," and "Sir Lucentio." Steevens. -a pip out?] The old copy has-peepe. Corrected by Mr. Pope. Malone. Rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly?5 Pet. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you. Pet. Such wind as scatters young men through the To seek their fortunes further than at home, Where small experience grows. But, in a few,7 And I have thrust myself into this maze, Hor. Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee, Pet. Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we, (As wealth is burthen of my wooing dance) 5 knock me soundly?] Shakspeare seems to design a ridicule on this clipped and ungrammatical phraseology; which yet he has introduced in Othello: "I pray talk me of Cassio." It occurs again, and more improperly, in heroic translation: upon advantage spide, "Did wound me Molphey on the leg," &c. Arthur Golding's Ovid, B. V, p. 66, b. Steevens. 6 Why, this a heavy chance &c.] I should read: Why this so heavy chance &c. M. Mason. 7 Where small experience grows. But in a few,] In a few, means the same as in short, in few words. So, in King Henry IV, Part II: Johnson. "In few;-his death, whose spirit lent a fire, &c. Steevens. 2 Be she as foul as was Florentius' love," 8 (As wealth is burthen of my wooing dance)] The burthen of a dance is an expression which I have never heard; the burthen of his wooing song had been more proper. Johnson. 9 Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,] I suppose this alludes to the story of a Florentine, which is met with in the eleventh Book of Thomas Lupton's Thousand Notable Things, and perhaps in other collections: "39. A Florentine young gentleman was so deceived by the ·lustre and orientness of her jewels, pearls, rings, lawns, scarfes, laces, gold spangles, and other gaudy devices, that he was ravished overnight, and was mad till the marriage was solemnized. But next morning by light viewing her before she was so gorge ously trim'd up, she was such a leane, yellow, riveled, deformed creature, that he never lay with her, nor lived with her afterwards; and would say that he had married himself to a stinking house of office, painted over, and set out with fine garments: and so for grief consumed away in melancholy, and at last poysoned himself. Gomesius, Lib. 3, de Sal. Gen. cap. 22." Farmer. The allusion is to a story told by Gower in the first Book De Confessione Amantis. Florent is the name of a knight who had bound himself to marry a deformed hag, provided she taught him the solution of a riddle on which his life depended. The following is the description of her: "Florent his wofull heed up lifte, "And saw this vecke, where that she sit, "Hir nose baas, hir browes hie, "Hir necke is shorte, hir shulders courbe, "That might a mans luste distourbe: "And shortly to descrive hir all, "But like unto the woll sacke:" &c. "Though she be the fouleste of all," &c. This story might have been borrowed by Gower from an older narrative in the Gesta Romanorum. See the Introductory Discourse to The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition, Vol. IV, p. 153. Steevens. |