Act 3, Scene 2

The same. Before BAPTISTA'S house.

[Enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA, LUCENTIO, and ATTENDANTS.]
[To TRANIO.]
Baptista
1316 Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed day
1317 That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,
1318 And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.
1319 What will be said? What mockery will it be
1320 To want the bridegroom when the priest attends
1321 To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!
1322 What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?
Katherina
1323 No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc'd
1324 To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart,
1325 Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen;
1326 Who woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.
1327 I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
1328 Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour;
1329 And to be noted for a merry man,
1330 He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,
1331 Make friends invited, and proclaim the banns;
1332 Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.
1333 Now must the world point at poor Katherine,
1334 And say 'Lo! there is mad Petruchio's wife,
1335 If it would please him come and marry her.'
Tranio
1336 Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.
1337 Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
1338 Whatever fortune stays him from his word:
1339 Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
1340 Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest.
Katherina
1341 Would Katherine had never seen him though!
[Exit, weeping, followed by BIANCA and others.]
Baptista
1342 Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,
1343 For such an injury would vex a very saint;
1344 Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.
[Enter BIONDELLO.]
Baptista
1345 Master, master! News! old news, and such news as you never heard
1346 of!
Baptista
1347 Is it new and old too? How may that be?
Biondello
1348 Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's coming?
Baptista
1349 Is he come?
Biondello
1350 Why, no, sir.
Baptista
1351 What then?
Biondello
1352 He is coming.
Baptista
1353 When will he be here?
Biondello
1354 When he stands where I am and sees you there.
Tranio
1355 But, say, what to thine old news?
Biondello
1356 Why, Petruchio is coming, in a new hat and an old
1357 jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turned; a pair of boots
1358 that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another laced; an old
1359 rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, with a broken hilt,
1360 and chapeless; with two broken points: his horse hipped with an
1361 old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possessed
1362 with the glanders and like to mose in the chine; troubled with
1363 the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped
1364 with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the fives,
1365 stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed in
1366 the back and shoulder-shotten; near-legged before, and with a
1367 half-checked bit, and a head-stall of sheep's leather, which,
1368 being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often
1369 burst, and now repaired with knots; one girth six times pieced,
1370 and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her
1371 name fairly set down in studs, and here and there pieced with
1372 pack-thread.
Baptista
1373 Who comes with him?
Biondello
1374 O, sir! his lackey, for all the world caparisoned like
1375 the horse; with a linen stock on one leg and a kersey boot-hose
1376 on the other, gartered with a red and blue list; an old hat, and
1377 the 'humour of forty fancies' prick'd in't for a feather: a
1378 monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian
1379 footboy or a gentleman's lackey.
Tranio
1380 'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;
1381 Yet oftentimes lie goes but mean-apparell'd.
Baptista
1382 I am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.
Biondello
1383 Why, sir, he comes not.
Baptista
1384 Didst thou not say he comes?
Biondello
1385 Who? that Petruchio came?
Baptista
1386 Ay, that Petruchio came.
Biondello
1387 No, sir; I say his horse comes, with him on his back.
Baptista
1388 Why, that's all one.
Biondello
1389 Nay, by Saint Jamy,
1390 I hold you a penny,
1391 A horse and a man
1392 Is more than one,
1393 And yet not many.
[Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO.]
Petruchio
1394 Come, where be these gallants? Who is at home?
Baptista
1395 You are welcome, sir.
Petruchio
1396 And yet I come not well.
Baptista
1397 And yet you halt not.
Tranio
1398 Not so well apparell'd
1399 As I wish you were.
Petruchio
1400 Were it better, I should rush in thus.
1401 But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?
1402 How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown;
1403 And wherefore gaze this goodly company,
1404 As if they saw some wondrous monument,
1405 Some comet or unusual prodigy?
Baptista
1406 Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:
1407 First were we sad, fearing you would not come;
1408 Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.
1409 Fie! doff this habit, shame to your estate,
1410 An eye-sore to our solemn festival.
Tranio
1411 And tell us what occasion of import
1412 Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife,
1413 And sent you hither so unlike yourself?
Petruchio
1414 Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear;
1415 Sufficeth, I am come to keep my word,
1416 Though in some part enforced to digress;
1417 Which at more leisure I will so excuse
1418 As you shall well be satisfied withal.
1419 But where is Kate? I stay too long from her;
1420 The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.
Tranio
1421 See not your bride in these unreverent robes;
1422 Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.
Petruchio
1423 Not I, believe me: thus I'll visit her.
Baptista
1424 But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.
Petruchio
1425 Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with words;
1426 To me she's married, not unto my clothes.
1427 Could I repair what she will wear in me
1428 As I can change these poor accoutrements,
1429 'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.
1430 But what a fool am I to chat with you
1431 When I should bid good-morrow to my bride,
1432 And seal the title with a lovely kiss!
[Exeunt PETRUCHIO, GRUMIO, and BIODELLO.]
Tranio
1433 He hath some meaning in his mad attire.
1434 We will persuade him, be it possible,
1435 To put on better ere he go to church.
Baptista
1436 I'll after him and see the event of this.
[Exeunt BAPTISTA, GREMIO and ATTENDENTS.]
Tranio
1437 But to her love concerneth us to add
1438 Her father's liking; which to bring to pass,
1439 As I before imparted to your worship,
1440 I am to get a man,—whate'er he be
1441 It skills not much; we'll fit him to our turn,—
1442 And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,
1443 And make assurance here in Padua,
1444 Of greater sums than I have promised.
1445 So shall you quietly enjoy your hope,
1446 And marry sweet Bianca with consent.
Lucentio
1447 Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster
1448 Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,
1449 'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;
1450 Which once perform'd, let all the world say no,
1451 I'll keep mine own despite of all the world.
Tranio
1452 That by degrees we mean to look into,
1453 And watch our vantage in this business.
1454 We'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,
1455 The narrow-prying father, Minola,
1456 The quaint musician, amorous Licio;
1457 All for my master's sake, Lucentio.
[Re-enter GREMIO.]
Tranio
1458 Signior Gremio, came you from the church?
Gremio
1459 As willingly as e'er I came from school.
Tranio
1460 And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?
Gremio
1461 A bridegroom, say you? 'Tis a groom indeed,
1462 A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.
Tranio
1463 Curster than she? Why, 'tis impossible.
Gremio
1464 Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.
Tranio
1465 Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.
Gremio
1466 Tut! she's a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him.
1467 I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest
1468 Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,
1469 'Ay, by gogs-wouns' quoth he, and swore so loud
1470 That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book;
1471 And as he stoop'd again to take it up,
1472 The mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff
1473 That down fell priest and book, and book and priest:
1474 'Now take them up,' quoth he 'if any list.'
Tranio
1475 What said the wench, when he rose again?
Gremio
1476 Trembled and shook, for why, he stamp'd and swore
1477 As if the vicar meant to cozen him.
1478 But after many ceremonies done,
1479 He calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if
1480 He had been abroad, carousing to his mates
1481 After a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel,
1482 And threw the sops all in the sexton's face,
1483 Having no other reason
1484 But that his beard grew thin and hungerly
1485 And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.
1486 This done, he took the bride about the neck,
1487 And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack
1488 That at the parting all the church did echo.
1489 And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame;
1490 And after me, I know, the rout is coming.
1491 Such a mad marriage never was before.
1492 Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.
[Music.]
[Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA, BAPTISTA, HORTENSIO, GRUMIO, and Train.]
Petruchio
1493 Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:
1494 I know you think to dine with me to-day,
1495 And have prepar'd great store of wedding cheer
1496 But so it is- my haste doth call me hence,
1497 And therefore here I mean to take my leave.
Baptista
1498 Is't possible you will away to-night?
Petruchio
1499 I must away to-day before night come.
1500 Make it no wonder: if you knew my business,
1501 You would entreat me rather go than stay.
1502 And, honest company, I thank you all,
1503 That have beheld me give away myself
1504 To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.
1505 Dine with my father, drink a health to me.
1506 For I must hence; and farewell to you all.
Tranio
1507 Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.
Petruchio
1508 It may not be.
Gremio
1509 Let me entreat you.
Petruchio
1510 It cannot be.
Katherina
1511 Let me entreat you.
Petruchio
1512 I am content.
Katherina
1513 Are you content to stay?
Petruchio
1514 I am content you shall entreat me stay;
1515 But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.
Katherina
1516 Now, if you love me, stay.
Petruchio
1517 Grumio, my horse!
Grumio
1518 Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.
Katherina
1519 Nay, then,
1520 Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day;
1521 No, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.
1522 The door is open, sir; there lies your way;
1523 You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;
1524 For me, I'll not be gone till I please myself.
1525 'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom
1526 That take it on you at the first so roundly.
Petruchio
1527 O Kate! content thee: prithee be not angry.
Katherina
1528 I will be angry: what hast thou to do?
1529 Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.
Gremio
1530 Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.
Katherina
1531 Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:
1532 I see a woman may be made a fool,
1533 If she had not a spirit to resist.
Petruchio
1534 They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.
1535 Obey the bride, you that attend on her;
1536 Go to the feast, revel and domineer,
1537 Carouse full measure to her maidenhead,
1538 Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves:
1539 But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
1540 Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
1541 I will be master of what is mine own.
1542 She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
1543 My household stuff, my field, my barn,
1544 My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything;
1545 And here she stands, touch her whoever dare;
1546 I'll bring mine action on the proudest he
1547 That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,
1548 Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;
1549 Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.
1550 Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;
1551 I'll buckler thee against a million.
[Exeunt PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, and GRUMIO.]
Baptista
1552 Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.
Gremio
1553 Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.
Tranio
1554 Of all mad matches, never was the like.
Lucentio
1555 Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister?
Bianca
1556 That, being mad herself, she's madly mated.
Gremio
1557 I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.
Baptista
1558 Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants
1559 For to supply the places at the table,
1560 You know there wants no junkets at the feast.
1561 Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place;
1562 And let Bianca take her sister's room.
Tranio
1563 Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?
Baptista
1564 She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1325archaic vocab
“mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen”
A 'rudesby' is a rude, boisterous, or disorderly person — an Elizabethan coinage from 'rude' plus the contemptuous suffix '-by.' 'Spleen' meant volatile, changeable temper: the spleen was thought to be the seat of sudden passion and laughter. Katherina is calling Petruchio a reckless hothead with no self-control.
TLN 1326wordplay
“woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure”
A deliberate inversion of the familiar Elizabethan proverb 'marry in haste, repent at leisure.' By reversing the terms — he woos in haste but leaves the marrying to some indefinite future — Katherina sharpens the insult: Petruchio is not even going through with what the proverb warns against.
TLN 1331cultural context
“proclaim the banns”
The 'banns' (or 'banns of marriage') were a public announcement, read aloud in church on three successive Sundays before a wedding, naming the couple and inviting anyone who knew a legal impediment to their marriage to speak up. The Church of England required them; skipping them required a bishop's licence. Baptista and the guests have waited out the full banns-reading, which makes Petruchio's no-show the more humiliating.
TLN 1356archaic vocab
“new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turned”
A 'jerkin' is a short, close-fitting jacket or doublet, often of leather, worn over a shirt — standard Elizabethan male outer dress. 'Breeches thrice turned' means trousers so worn out they have been turned inside out (and then outside in again) multiple times to hide the fraying. Together with the mismatched, buckled and laced boots and the 'chapeless' scabbard — a scabbard lacking its metal tip-cover (chape) — Biondello describes a figure dressed in deliberate, aggressive shabbiness.
TLN 1362archaic vocab
“glanders and like to mose in the chine; troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped with spavins, rayed with the yellows”
Biondello reels off the full catalogue of equine diseases: glanders (a contagious bacterial disease causing nasal discharge), the chine (a spinal disease; 'mose' means moulder or decay), lampass (a swelling of the mouth lining), the fashions (farcy, a skin disease), windgalls (soft swellings on the fetlock joints), spavins (bony growths on the hock), and the yellows (jaundice). Every condition named is a real horse ailment documented in Elizabethan veterinary manuals, and together they sketch an animal barely able to stand.
TLN 1377historical topical
“humour of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather”
'The humour of forty fancies' appears to be the title (or a garbling of the title) of a real Elizabethan printed pamphlet or ballad sheet, skewered into the hat where a fashionable gentleman would normally wear a decorative feather. Using cheap printed matter as a hat ornament was a ready-made comic insult to anyone who valued correct dress.
TLN 1405cultural context
“some comet or unusual prodigy”
In Elizabethan natural philosophy, comets and other strange celestial phenomena were 'prodigies' — signs sent by God or nature to warn of coming disaster such as plague, war, or the death of a great person. Petruchio's ironic self-awareness here is notable: he acknowledges that his appearance is so bizarre that onlookers stare as if expecting catastrophe, and he is amused rather than embarrassed.
TLN 1426rhetorical device
“To me she's married, not unto my clothes”
Petruchio's retort is a witty aphorism (a sententia): the marriage vow binds the person, not the clothing. The line works as an epigram that cuts off all objection — you cannot argue with it — and simultaneously reasserts his authority: he decides the terms of the wedding, not the guests or Baptista. It is also a restatement of Elizabethan social theory about identity residing in the person, not the outward show.
TLN 1432wordplay
“seal the title with a lovely kiss”
Petruchio frames his first kiss with Katherina in legal property terms: to 'seal' a document was to press a wax seal onto it, converting a mere written agreement into a binding legal instrument. 'Title' here means legal ownership, as in a title-deed. He is claiming Katherina as property and the kiss as the act that ratifies that claim — the transaction language deliberately echoes the mercantile marriage negotiations of Act 2.
TLN 1441archaic vocab
“It skills not much”
'It skills not' is an Elizabethan idiom meaning 'it does not matter' or 'it makes no difference.' The verb 'skill' in this sense (to matter, to be of consequence) is archaic and largely obsolete after the 17th century. Tranio is reassuring Lucentio that the identity of the man they recruit to impersonate Vincentio is unimportant, as long as he can be coached into the role.
TLN 1461wordplay
“'Tis a groom indeed, A grumbling groom”
Gremio plays on two meanings of 'groom': a bridegroom (the husband at a wedding) and a groom as a menial stable-hand or low servant — a word of contempt when applied to a social superior. Tranio says 'bridegroom' and Gremio deflates Petruchio to a mere household drudge, with the added alliterative jab of 'grumbling.'
TLN 1465archaic vocab
“she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam”
'Dam' is an archaic word for a mother, used primarily of animals (a mare's dam, a lion's dam) but applied to humans in contemptuous or demonic contexts. 'The devil's dam' means the devil's own mother — an insult that outdoes 'devil' itself, since the mother of something monstrous is worse than the monster. Tranio is topping Gremio's 'devil, a devil' by escalating to the ultimate maternal origin of evil.
TLN 1469archaic vocab
“'Ay, by gogs-wouns' quoth he”
'Gogs-wouns' is a minced oath — a softened, disguised form of 'God's wounds,' referring to the wounds of Christ on the cross. Such oaths were common in Elizabethan England; an Act of Parliament in 1606 (the Act to Restrain Abuses of Players) prohibited the use of the actual divine name on stage, which is why dramatists used these distorted forms. Swearing such an oath loudly enough to startle a priest shows spectacular impiety at the holiest moment of the wedding ceremony.
TLN 1522archaic vocab
“there lies your way; You may be jogging whiles your boots are green”
'Jogging' means riding or trudging off — moving at a jog-trot. 'While your boots are green' is a proverbial phrase meaning 'right now, immediately' — the boots are still new or fresh, so there is no excuse for delay. Katherina is dismissing Petruchio with contemptuous briskness: the door is open, off you go, no time like the present.
TLN 1542cultural context
“She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything”
Petruchio lists Katherina as his legal property. Under the Elizabethan doctrine of 'coverture,' derived from common law, a wife had no independent legal identity: upon marriage all her property and her legal person were subsumed into her husband's. A husband could not 'rob' his own wife any more than he could rob his own furniture. Petruchio is not merely being rude — he is stating the law of England.
TLN 1544biblical allusion
“My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything”
Petruchio's list of possessions — house, field, horse, ox, ass — matches almost exactly the items listed in the Tenth Commandment's prohibition on coveting a neighbour's property: 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house... nor his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's' (Exodus 20:17). An Elizabethan audience steeped in the Bible and the Catechism would catch the echo at once, and the comedy is sharp: Petruchio is using the property-list that the commandment forbids coveting as proof of his own ownership.
TLN 1548rhetorical device
“Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves; Rescue thy mistress”
Petruchio abruptly shifts the scene into mock-chivalric mode, calling the assembled wedding guests 'thieves' and ordering Grumio to draw his weapon to protect Kate. The tactic is deliberate confusion: he wraps the abduction in the vocabulary of rescue, so that those trying to prevent him from taking Katherina appear to be attacking her, not guarding her. The inversion is comic but also structurally important — Petruchio will continue throughout the play to 'protect' Katherina from things she wants.
TLN 1551archaic vocab
“I'll buckler thee against a million”
To 'buckler' someone means to shield or defend them, from the buckler — a small round shield, typically 9-18 inches across, held in the fist or strapped to the forearm. The buckler was a common piece of Elizabethan street-fighting equipment, light enough to parry and punch with simultaneously. Using the shield as a verb was standard Elizabethan idiom.
TLN 1557wordplay
“Petruchio is Kated”
Gremio coins a nonce-word on the spot: 'Kated' — meaning matched with, saddled with, or perhaps undone by Kate. He mirrors the old verb form 'cuckolded' or similar character-derived injuries, but here the pun is ambiguous about who has the worse of it. The audience has just watched Petruchio dominate the scene utterly, so 'Kated' may simply mean 'coupled with a Kate,' not 'defeated by one.'
TLN 1560archaic vocab
“there wants no junkets at the feast”
'Junkets' meant sweetmeats, delicacies, or dainty confections — the fine dessert-course dishes that marked a feast as a celebration rather than a plain meal. The word derives from Italian 'giuncata' (a cream cheese served on rushes), but by the Elizabethan period it had broadened to cover sugared sweets, candied fruits, and other luxuries of the banqueting course. Baptista is reassuring his guests that despite the absence of bride and groom, the food is still lavish.