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The Taming of the Shrew - Induction, scene 2
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The Taming of the Shrew - Induction, scene 2Induction, scene 2
⌜Scene 2⌝
Synopsis:
The newly awakened Sly is offered delicacies and fine clothes. When he demands his usual ale and beef, the lord and servants tell him that he has been suffering from delusions. After they inform him that he has a beautiful wife, he asks to see her. The lord’s page, who impersonates the wife, persuades Sly to watch the play that is about to begin.
Enter aloft ⌜Christopher Sly,⌝ the drunkard, withAttendants, some with apparel, basin and ewer, and
other appurtenances, and Lord ⌜dressed as an Attendant.⌝
SLY 0145 For God’s sake, a pot of small ale.
FIRST SERVINGMAN
0146 Will ’t please your Lord drink a cup of sack?
SECOND SERVINGMAN
0147 Will ’t please your Honor taste of these conserves?
THIRD SERVINGMAN
0148 What raiment will your Honor wear today?
SLY 0149 5I am Christophero Sly! Call not me “Honor” nor
0150 “Lordship.” I ne’er drank sack in my life. An if you
0151 give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef.
0152 Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no
0153 more doublets than backs, no more stockings than
0154 10 legs, nor no more shoes than feet, nay sometime
0155 more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look
0156 through the over-leather.
LORD, ⌜as Attendant⌝
0157 Heaven cease this idle humor in your Honor!
0158 O, that a mighty man of such descent,
0159 15 Of such possessions, and so high esteem
0160 Should be infusèd with so foul a spirit!
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19
SLY
0161
What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher0162 Sly, old Sly’s son of Burton Heath, by birth a
0163 peddler, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation
0164 20 a bearherd, and now by present profession a
0165 tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat alewife of Wincot,
0166 if she know me not! If she say I am not fourteen
0167 pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the
0168 lying’st knave in Christendom. What, I am not
0169 25 bestraught! Here’s—
THIRD SERVINGMAN
0170 O, this it is that makes your lady mourn.
SECOND SERVINGMAN
0171 O, this is it that makes your servants droop.
LORD, ⌜as Attendant⌝
0172 Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
0173 As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
0174 30 O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
0175 Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
0176 And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
0177 Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
0178 Each in his office ready at thy beck.
0179 35 Wilt thou have music? Hark, Apollo plays,Music.
0180 And twenty cagèd nightingales do sing.
0181 Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch
0182 Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
0183 On purpose trimmed up for Semiramis.
0184 40 Say thou wilt walk, we will bestrew the ground.
0185 Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapped,
0186 Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
0187 Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar
0188 Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?
0189 45 Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
0190 And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.
FIRST SERVINGMAN
0191 Say thou wilt course. Thy greyhounds are as swift
0192 As breathèd stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.
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21
SECOND SERVINGMAN 0193 Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
0194 50 Adonis painted by a running brook,
0195 And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
0196 Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
0197 Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
LORD, ⌜as Attendant⌝
0198 We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid
0199 55 And how she was beguilèd and surprised,
0200 As lively painted as the deed was done.
THIRD SERVINGMAN
0201 Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
0202 Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
0203 And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
0204 60 So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.
LORD, ⌜as Attendant⌝
0205 Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord;
0206 Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
0207 Than any woman in this waning age.
FIRST SERVINGMAN
0208 And till the tears that she hath shed for thee
0209 65 Like envious floods o’errun her lovely face,
0210 She was the fairest creature in the world—
0211 And yet she is inferior to none.
SLY
0212 Am I a lord, and have I such a lady?
0213 Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now?
0214 70 I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak,
0215 I smell sweet savors, and I feel soft things.
0216 Upon my life, I am a lord indeed
0217 And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.
0218 Well, bring our lady hither to our sight,
0219 75 And once again a pot o’ the smallest ale.
SECOND SERVINGMAN
0220 Will ’t please your Mightiness to wash your hands?
0221 O, how we joy to see your wit restored!
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23
0222
O, that once more you knew but what you are!0223 These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
0224 80 Or, when you waked, so waked as if you slept.
SLY
0225 These fifteen years! By my fay, a goodly nap.
0226 But did I never speak of all that time?
FIRST SERVINGMAN
0227 Oh, yes, my lord, but very idle words.
0228 For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
0229 85 Yet would you say you were beaten out of door,
0230 And rail upon the hostess of the house,
0231 And say you would present her at the leet
0232 Because she brought stone jugs and no sealed
0233 quarts.
0234 90 Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.
SLY 0235 Ay, the woman’s maid of the house.
THIRD SERVINGMAN
0236 Why, sir, you know no house, nor no such maid,
0237 Nor no such men as you have reckoned up,
0238 As Stephen Sly and old John Naps of ⌜Greete,⌝
0239 95 And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell,
0240 And twenty more such names and men as these,
0241 Which never were, nor no man ever saw.
SLY 0242 Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!
ALL 0243 Amen.
SLY 0244 100I thank thee. Thou shalt not lose by it.
Enter ⌜Page as⌝ Lady, with Attendants.
⌜PAGE, as⌝ Lady 0245 How fares my noble lord?
SLY 0246 Marry, I fare well, for here is cheer enough.
0247 Where is my wife?
⌜PAGE, as⌝ Lady
0248 Here, noble lord. What is thy will with her?
SLY
0249 105 Are you my wife, and will not call me “husband”?
0250 My men should call me “lord.” I am your goodman.
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⌜PAGE, as⌝ Lady 0251 My husband and my lord, my lord and husband,
0252 I am your wife in all obedience.
SLY
0253 I know it well.—What must I call her?
LORD, ⌜as Attendant⌝ 0254 110 “Madam.”
SLY 0255 “Alice Madam,” or “Joan Madam”?
LORD
0256 “Madam,” and nothing else. So lords call ladies.
SLY
0257 Madam wife, they say that I have dreamed
0258 And slept above some fifteen year or more.
⌜PAGE, as⌝ Lady
0259 115 Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
0260 Being all this time abandoned from your bed.
SLY
0261 ’Tis much.—Servants, leave me and her alone.—
0262 Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.
⌜PAGE, as⌝ Lady
0263 Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
0264 120 To pardon me yet for a night or two;
0265 Or if not so, until the sun be set.
0266 For your physicians have expressly charged,
0267 In peril to incur your former malady,
0268 That I should yet absent me from your bed.
0269 125 I hope this reason stands for my excuse.
SLY 0270 Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long; but
0271 I would be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will
0272 therefore tarry in despite of the flesh and the
0273 blood.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER
0274 130 Your Honor’s players, hearing your amendment,
0275 Are come to play a pleasant comedy,
0276 For so your doctors hold it very meet,
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0277
Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your0278 blood,
0279 135 And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
0280 Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
0281 And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
0282 Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
SLY 0283 Marry, I will. Let them play it.⌜Messenger exits.⌝
0284 140 Is not a comonty a Christmas gambold or a tumbling
0285 trick?
⌜PAGE, as⌝ Lady
0286 No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.
SLY 0287 What, household stuff?
⌜PAGE, as⌝ Lady 0288 It is a kind of history.
SLY 0289 145Well, we’ll see ’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my
0290 side, and let the world slip. We shall ne’er be
0291 younger.
⌜They sit.⌝