Act 4, Scene 5

A public road

[Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and SERVANTS.]
Petruchio
2174 Come on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.
2175 Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!
Katherina
2176 The moon! The sun; it is not moonlight now.
Petruchio
2177 I say it is the moon that shines so bright.
Katherina
2178 I know it is the sun that shines so bright.
Petruchio
2179 Now by my mother's son, and that's myself,
2180 It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
2181 Or ere I journey to your father's house.
2182 Go on and fetch our horses back again.
2183 Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!
Hortensio
2184 Say as he says, or we shall never go.
Katherina
2185 Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
2186 And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;
2187 And if you please to call it a rush-candle,
2188 Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
Petruchio
2189 I say it is the moon.
Katherina
2190 I know it is the moon.
Petruchio
2191 Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.
Katherina
2192 Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;
2193 But sun it is not when you say it is not,
2194 And the moon changes even as your mind.
2195 What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,
2196 And so it shall be so for Katherine.
Hortensio
2197 Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.
Petruchio
2198 Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,
2199 And not unluckily against the bias.
2200 But, soft! Company is coming here.
[Enter VINCENTIO, in a travelling dress.]
[To VINCENTIO]
Petruchio
2201 Good-morrow, gentle mistress; where away?
2202 Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
2203 Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
2204 Such war of white and red within her cheeks!
2205 What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty
2206 As those two eyes become that heavenly face?
2207 Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.
2208 Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.
Hortensio
2209 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.
Katherina
2210 Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
2211 Whither away, or where is thy abode?
2212 Happy the parents of so fair a child;
2213 Happier the man whom favourable stars
2214 Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow.
Petruchio
2215 Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:
2216 This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd,
2217 And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.
Katherina
2218 Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
2219 That have been so bedazzled with the sun
2220 That everything I look on seemeth green:
2221 Now I perceive thou art a reverend father;
2222 Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.
Petruchio
2223 Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known
2224 Which way thou travellest: if along with us,
2225 We shall be joyful of thy company.
Vincentio
2226 Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,
2227 That with your strange encounter much amaz'd me,
2228 My name is called Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;
2229 And bound I am to Padua, there to visit
2230 A son of mine, which long I have not seen.
Petruchio
2231 What is his name?
Vincentio
2232 Lucentio, gentle sir.
Petruchio
2233 Happily met; the happier for thy son.
2234 And now by law, as well as reverend age,
2235 I may entitle thee my loving father:
2236 The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,
2237 Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,
2238 Nor be not griev'd: she is of good esteem,
2239 Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;
2240 Beside, so qualified as may beseem
2241 The spouse of any noble gentleman.
2242 Let me embrace with old Vincentio;
2243 And wander we to see thy honest son,
2244 Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.
Vincentio
2245 But is this true? or is it else your pleasure,
2246 Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest
2247 Upon the company you overtake?
Hortensio
2248 I do assure thee, father, so it is.
Petruchio
2249 Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;
2250 For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.
[Exeunt all but HORTENSIO.]
Hortensio
2251 Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.
2252 Have to my widow! and if she be froward,
2253 Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 2179rhetorical device
“by my mother's son, and that's myself”
Petruchio swears an oath by 'my mother's son' — a roundabout way of saying 'by myself,' since he is his mother's son. The construction lets him swear on his own authority rather than invoking God or a saint, underscoring that his will is the only law on this journey. The phrasing is also mildly comic: the most self-referential oath possible.
TLN 2187archaic vocab
“call it a rush-candle”
A rush-candle was the cheapest possible light: a dried rush-stalk soaked in grease, giving a faint, flickering flame. Katherina is saying she will call the sun whatever Petruchio likes — even the most pathetically dim substitute for real light imaginable. The comparison between the sun and a rush-candle makes the absurdity of Petruchio's game vivid.
TLN 2194rhetorical device
“the moon changes even as your mind”
Katherina's yielding is not simple capitulation: she slips in a pointed comparison between the moon and Petruchio's mind, both equally changeable. The phrase 'And so it shall be so for Katherine' confirms her compliance — but the line about the changing moon quietly preserves her intelligence even as she surrenders the argument. Editors note this as the scene's dramatic fulcrum.
TLN 2198cultural context
“thus the bowl should run, And not unluckily against the bias”
Petruchio uses bowling to celebrate his victory in the sun/moon dispute. In the Elizabethan lawn game of bowls, the wooden ball (the 'bowl') was weighted on one side — its 'bias' — to make it curve; a bowl that ran 'against the bias' curved the wrong way and went wide. Petruchio is saying the game has finally run as it should: Katherina, like a well-biased bowl, has followed the intended line.
TLN 2204rhetorical device
“Such war of white and red within her cheeks”
Petruchio deliberately praises old Vincentio as if he were a beautiful young woman — the 'war of white and red within her cheeks' refers to the blazon (formal praise-poem) convention in which a woman's complexion was described as a battle between the pallor of white and the bloom of red. The more absurd the praise lands on an elderly man, the more it tests Katherina's willingness to play along.
TLN 2210cultural context
“Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet”
Katherina now addresses the old man Vincentio in precisely the terms Petruchio used — calling him a 'young budding virgin' and fantasizing about the happy husband who will share his 'lovely bed-fellow.' She has not merely yielded; she has adopted Petruchio's own comic strategy and performs it with gusto. The speech is remarkable: scholars disagree whether it shows defeat, adaptation, or the beginnings of an equal partnership in the game.
TLN 2219archaic vocab
“so bedazzled with the sun That everything I look on seemeth green”
'Bedazzled' means dazzled or blinded by excess of light, and 'seemeth green' means appears fresh, inexperienced, or new — as if the eyes, overwhelmed by the sun, mistake an old man for a young person still green (unripe, youthful). Katherina invents a charming optical excuse for her 'mistake': the same sun she and Petruchio argued over has blinded her. The recovery is quick, graceful, and fully on Petruchio's terms.
TLN 2250archaic vocab
“our first merriment hath made thee jealous”
'Jealous' here means suspicious or apprehensive, not envious — the older English sense, still current in Shakespeare's day. Petruchio tells the bewildered Vincentio that their prank (calling him a young woman) has made him suspicious of everything they say. The word 'merriment' frames the whole sun/moon/false-maiden episode as a game or jest — Petruchio's own description of his taming technique as performance.
TLN 2252archaic vocab
“if she be froward, Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward”
'Froward' means stubbornly contrary or difficult to manage — the exact word used of Katherina throughout the play. 'Untoward' means unruly, refractory, or unmanageable in the same sense. Hortensio intends to apply Petruchio's method to his widow: if she proves froward, he will be equally untoward in return. The paired antonyms frame the taming-school lesson as a strategy of matching stubbornness with stubbornness.