Officer.] Carry this mad knave to the gaol :--Father | Gre. Say, officer; he shall not go to prison. go to prison. Gre. Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be coney-catched in this business; I dare swear, this is the right Vincentio. Ped. Swear, if thou darest. Gre. Nay, I dare not swear it. Tra. Then thou wert best say, that I am not Lucentio. Gre. Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio. Re-enter BIONDELLO, with LUCENTIO, and Bion. O, we are spoiled, and---Yonder he is; Where is Lucentio ? Luc. Here's Lucentio, Gre. Here's packing, with a witness, to deceive us all! Vin. Where is that damned villain, Tranio, Bap. Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio? Unto the wished haven of my bliss:- Vin. I'll slit the villain's nose, that would have sent me to the gaol. Bap. But do you hear, sir? [To LUCENTIO.] Have you married my daughter without asking my good-will? Pet. Why, then let's home again :-Come, sirrah, let's away. Kath. Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay. Pet. Is not this well ?-Come, my sweet Kate; Better once than never, for never too late. [Exeund. Vin. Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: But I will in, to be revenged for this vilfainy. [Exit. Bap. And I, to sound the depth of this knavery. [Exit. [Exeunt. Luc. and BIAN. Luc. Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown. Gre. My cake is dough:4 But I'll in among the rest: Out of hope of all,-but my share of the feast. PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA advance. [Exit. SCENE II. A Room in Lucentio's House. A And time it is, when raging war is done, [They sit at table. Hor. My widow says, thus she conceives her tale. Pet. Very well mended: Kiss him for that, good widow. Kath. He that is giddy, thinks the world turns I pray you, tell me what you meant by that. Wid. Pet. A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down. Pet. Spoke like an officer:-Ha' to thee, lad. Kath. Husband, let's follow, to see the end of Would say, your head and butt were head and horn. this ado. Pet. First kiss me, Kate, and we will. Kath. No, sir; God forbid :-but ashamed to kiss. Vin. Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you? Bian. Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'l sleep again. Pet. Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun, Have at you for a bitter jest or two. 4 An obsolete proverb, repeated on the loss of hope or expectation. Its meaning is not easily explained. It has been suggested that a cake which comes out of the oven in a state of dough, is utterly spoiled. 5 The old copy reads comt; the emendation is Rowe's. 6 The banquet here, as in other places of Shakspeare, was a refection similar to our modern dessert, consisting of cakes, sweetmeats, fruits, &c. be observed that shrew was pronounced shrow. See 7 As this was meant for a rhyming couplet, it should also the finale, where it rhymes to so. 8 The old copy reads better. The emendation is Ca. pell's. Bian. Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush, | Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands: And then pursue me as you draw your bow:- Away, I say, and bring them hither straight. You are welcome all. [Exeunt BIANCA, KATHARINA, and Widow. Pet. She hath prevented me.-Here, Signior Tranio, This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not; Therefore, a health to all that shot and miss'd.' Tra. O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound, 2 Which runs himself, and catches for his master. I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all. Pet. Well, I say-no; and therefore, for assu Bion. Gre. Hor. Sirrah, Biondello, go, and entreat my wife I am afraid, sir, Do what you can, yours will not be entreated Re-enter BIOndello. Now where's my wife? Bion. She says, you have some goodly jest hand; She will not come; she bids you come to her. Sirrah, Grumio, go to your mistress; [Exit KATHARINA. Luc. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder. Hor. And so it is; I wonder what it bodes. Pet. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life, An awful rule, and right supremacy; And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy. Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow. cap, and throws it down. Wid. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh, Till I be brought to such a silly pass! Bian. Fye! what a foolish duty call you this? Luc. I would, your duty were as foolish too: The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time. Bian. The more fool you for laying on my duty. Pet. Katharine, I charge thee, tell these head strong women What duty they do owe their lords and husbands. Wid. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling. Pet. Come on, I say; and first begin with her. Wid. She shall not. Pet. I say, she shall;-and first begin with her. Kath. Fye, fye! unknit that threat'ning unkind brow; And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, Say, I'command her come to me. [Exit GRUMIO. To offer war, where they should kneel for peace; Hor. I know her answer. Pet. What? Hor. Bap. Now, by my holidame, here comes Ka- Kath. What is your will, sir, that you send for me? 1 Beside the original sense of speedy in motion, swift signified witty, quick witted. 2 A gird is a cut, a sarcasm, a stroke of satire. Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, 3 That is, the gentle qualities of our minds. 1 Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot; Pet. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't. Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst shrew. Luc. "Tis a wonder, by vour leave, she will be tam'd so. [Exeunt." OF this play the two plots are so well united that they can hardly be called two, without injury to the art with which they are interwoven. The attention is entertained with all the variety of a double plot, yet is not distracted by unconnected incidents. Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toward. Luc. But a harsh hearing when women are froward. Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to bed :We three are married, but you two are sped.2 'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white ;3 [TO LUCENTIÓ. And, being a winner, God give you good night! [Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATH.lar and diverting. 1 Vail your stomachs,' abate your pride, your spirit, it is no boot, i. e. it is profitless, it is no advantage. 2 i. e. the fate of you both is decided; for you both have wives who exhibit early proofs of disobedience. 3 The white was the central part of the mark or butt in archery. Here is also a play upon the name of Bianca, which is white in Italian. 4 The old play continues thus: Then enter tico, bearing Slie in his own apparel againe, Tapster. Now that the darksome night is overpast, nently spritely and diverting. At the marriage of Bian The part between Katharina and Petruchio is emica, the arrival of the real father, perhaps, produces more perplexity than pleasure. The whole play is very popu JOHNSON. Ile wake him; I thinke he's starved by this, Tap. A lord, with a murrain ?-Come, art thou drunk still? Slie. Who's this? Tapeter!-Oh I have had the bravest dream that ever thou heard'st in all thy life. Tap. Yea, marry, but thou hadst best get thee home, for your wife will curse you for dreaming here all night. Slie. Will she? I know how to tame a shrew. I dreamt upon it all this night, and thou hast wak'd me out of the best dream that ever I had; but I'll to my I wife, and tame her too, if she anger me.' WINTER'S TALE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE story of this play is taken from The Pleasant The reader reechoes the sentiment of the lover, and is History of Dorastus and Fawnia, by Robert Greene, sorry to come to the close. With what modest unconwhich was first printed in 1588. The parts of Antigo-scious dignity are all her words and actions accompanied: nus, Paulina, and Autolycus are of the poet's own even Polixenes, who looks on her with no favourable creation; and many circumstances of the novel are eye, says that there is omitted in the play. A booke entitled A Winter's Night's Pastime,' entered at Stationer's Hall, in 1594, but which has not come down to us, may have suggested the title, by which Shakspeare thought the romantic and extraordinary incidents of the play well characterised: he several times in the course of the last act makes one of his characters remark its similarity to an old tale. Schlegel has observed that 'The Winter's Tale is as appropriately named as the Midsummer Night's Dream. It is one of those tales which are peculiarly calculated to beguile the dreary leisure of a long winter evening, which are even atractive and intelligible to childhood, and which, animated by fervent truth in the delineation of character and passion, invested with the decoration of a poetry lowering itself, as it were, to the simplicity of the subject, transport even manhood back to the golden age of imagination. The calculation of probabilities has nothing to do with such wonderful and fleeting adventures, ending at last in general joy; and accordingly Shakspeare has here taken the greatest liberties with anachronisms and geographical errors: he opens a free navigation between Sicily and Bohemia, makes Julio Romano the contemporary of the Delphic Oracle, not to mention other incongruities.' It is extraordinary that Pope should have thought only some single scenes of this play were from the hand of Shakspeare. It breathes his spirit throughout; in the serious parts as well as in those of a lighter kind: and who but Shakspeare could have conceived that exquisite pastoral scene in which the loves of Florizel and Perdita are developed? It is indeed a pastoral of the golden age, and Perdita no Shepherdess, but Flora, Peering in April's front,' and breathing flowers, in the spring-tide of youth and beauty. How gracefully she distributes her emblematic favours! What language accompanies them! Well may Florizel exclaim: when you speak, sweet, I'd have you do it ever!' nothing she does or says But smacks of something greater than herself. The Shepherds and Shepherdesses, with whom she has been brought up, are such as ordinary life affords, and are judicious foils to this delightful couple of lovers. The arch roguery and mirthful stratagems of Autolycus are very amusing, and his character admiratly sustained. The jealousy of Leontes (says the judicious Schlegel) is not, like that of Othello, developed with all the causes, symptoms, and grauations; it is brought forward at once, and is portrayed as a distempered frenzy. It is a passion which does not produce the catas trophe, but merely ties the knot of the piece.' But it has the same intemperate course, is the same soul-geading passion which wrings a noble nature to acts of revenge. ful cruelty; at which, under happier stars, it would have shuddered, and which are no sooner committed than repented of. The patient and affecting resignation of the wronged Hermione under circumstances of the deepest anguish; and the zealous and courageous remonstrances of the faithful Paulina, have the stamp of Shakspeare upon them. Indeed I know not what parts of this drama could be attributed to any even of the most skilful of his contemporaries. It was perhaps the discrepancies of the plot (which in fact almost divides it into two plays with an interval of sixteen years between,) and the anachronisms, which made Dryden and Pope overlook the beauties of execution in this enchanting play. * Dryden, in the Essay at the end of the second part of the Conquest of Grenada, speaking of the plays of Shakspeare and Fletcher, says:-'Witness the lameness of their plots; many of which, especially those which they wrote first (for even that age refined itself in some measure,) were made up of some ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the busi ness of an age. I suppose I need not name Pericles, nor the historical plays of Shakspeare; besides many of the rest, as The Winter's Tale, Love's Labour's Lost, Malone places the composition of the Winter's Tale in 1611, because it was first licensed for representation by Sir George Bucke, Master of the Revels, who did nit assume the functions of his office until August 1610. The mention of the Puritan singing psalms to hornIipes' also points at this period, as does another passage, which is supposed to be a compliment to James on his escape from the Gowrie Conspiracy. These are conjectures, but probable ones; Malone had in former instances placed the date much earlier; first in 1594, and then in 1602. The supposition that Ben Jonson intended a sneer at this play in his induction to BarthoMeasure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious parts your concernment. Pope, in his Preface to Shakspeare, almost reechoes this: I should conjecture (says he) of some of the others, particularly Love's Labour's Lost, The Winter's Tale, Comedy of Errors, and Titus An lomew Fair has been satisfactorily answered by Mr. dronicus, that only some characters or single scenes, or ACT 1. SCENE I. Sicilia. An Antichamber in Leontes' Palace. Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS. Ir you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on Cam. I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him. Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves: for, indeed,Cam. Beseech you, Arch. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence-in so rare--I know not what to say.We will give you sleepy drinks; that your senses, unintelligent of our insignificance, may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us. Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts ance. to utter Clown, his Son. Servant to the old Shepherd. AUTOLYCUS, a Rogue. Time, as Chorus. HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes. PERDITA, Daughter to Leontes and Hermione. PAULINA, Wife to Antigonus. EMILIA, a Lady, Two other Ladies, attending the Queen. Shepherdesses. Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Satyrs for a Dance; SCENE, sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia. embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves! Arch. I think, there is not in the world either malice, or matter, to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise, that ever came into my note. Cam. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that, indeed, physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh: they, that went on crutches ere he was born, desire yet their life, to see him a man. Arch. Would they else be content to die? Cam. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live. Arch. If the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. A Room of State in the Palace. Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and Attendants. Pol. Nine changes of the wat'ry star have been Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks: That Leon Cam. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind to Go hence in debt: And therefore, like a cipher. Bohemia. They were trained together in their child-Yet standing in rich place, I multiply, hoods; and there rooted betwixt them then such With one we-thank-you, many thousands more an affection, which cannot choose but branch now. before it. go Since their more mature dignities, and royal necessities made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attornied, with interchange gifts, letters, loving embassies; that they have seemed to be together, though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and 1 Royally attornied.' Nobly supplied by substitution of embassies. 2 i. e. over a wide intervening space. 3 Physics the subject.' Affords a cordial to the state, has the power of assuaging the sense of misery. 4 That for Oh that! is not uncommon in old writers. I And Stay your thanks awhile; pay them when you part. Pol. Sir, that's to-morrow. 5 Sneaping, nipping. 6 i. e. to make me say, I had too good reason for my fears concerning what may happen in my absence from home. I'll no gain-saying. Pol. Press me not, 'beseech you, so: There is no tongue that moves, none, none i'the world So soon as yours, could win me: so it should now, Were there necessity in your request, although 'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs Do even drag me homeward: which to hinder Were, in your love, a whip to me: my stay, To you a charge and trouble: to save both, Farewell, our brother. Leon. Tongue-tied, our queen? speak you. Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace, until You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir, Leon. Well said, Hermione. Her. To tell he longs to see his son, were strong: But let him say so then, and let him go; But let him swear so, and he shall not stay, We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.Yet of your royal presence [To Po..] I'll adventure The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia You take my lord, I'll give him my commission, To let him there a month, behind the gest1 Prefix'd for his parting: yet, good deed, Leontes, I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind What lady she her lord.-You'll stay? Pol. I pr'ythee, tell me: Cram us with praise, and make us Slaughters a thousand, waiting upon that. I may not, veruy. You put me off with limber vows: But I, Leon. Why that was when Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to oaths," Should yet say, Sir, no going. Verily, You shall not go; a lady's verily is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees, When you depart, and save your thanks. say you? How My prisoner or my guest? by your dread verily, One of them you shall be. Pol. Your guest, then, madam: To be your prisoner, should import offending; Which is for me less easy to commit, Than you to punish. Her. Not your gaoler, then, But your kind hostess. Come, I'll question you Of my lord's tricks, and yours, when you were boys; You were pretty lordings then. Pol. We were, fair queen, Two lads that thought there was no more behind, But such a day to-morrow as to-day, And to be boy eternal. Her. Was not my lord the verier wag o' the two? Pol. We were as twinn'd lambs, that did frisk i' the sun, And bleat the one at the other: what we chang'd, Was innocence for innocence; we knew not The doctrine of ill doing, nor dream'd 1 To let had for its synonymes to stay or stop; to let him there, is to stay him there. Gests were scrolls in which were marked the stages or places of rest in a progress or journey, especially a royal one. 2 i. e. indeed, in very deed, in troth. Good deed is used in the same sense by the Earl of Surrey, Sir John Hayward, and Gascoigne. 3 Lordings, a diminutive of lords, often used by Chaucer. 4i.e. setting aside the original sin, bating the imposition from the offence of our first parents, we might have boldly protested our innocence. It is grace, indeed.Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose twice: The one for ever earn'd a royal husband; The other, for some while a friend. [Giving her hand to POLIXENES. Leon. Too hot, too hot: [Aside To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods. I have tremor cordis on me :-my heart dances; But not for joy,-not joy.-This entertainment May a free face put on; derive a liberty From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom," And well become the agent: it may, I grant: But to be paddling palms, and pinching fingers, As now they are: and making practis'd smiles, As in a looking-glass;-and then to sigh, as 'twere The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment My bosom likes not, nor my brows.--Mamillius, Art thou my boy? 5 Grace to boot." An exclamation equivalen: t give us grace. 6 At entering into any contract, or plighting of trech, this clapping of hands together set the seal. Numero instances of allusion to the custom have been addered by the editors; one shall suffice, from the old play f Ram Alley: 'Come, clap hands, a match. The custom is not yet disused in common life. 7from bounty, fertile bosom," I think with Malone that a letter has been omitted, and that we should read: from bounty's fertile bosom.' 8 i. e. the death of the deer. The mort was also certain notes played on the horn at the death of the deer. 9 Bawcock. A burlesque word of endearment sup |
