The Taming of the Shrew – A. J. Drake's Shakespeare Site

Induction Scene 1 (209-13, a poor drunken man named Christopher Sly gets kicked out of a tavern by the hostess; an aristocrat comes back from a hunting party, catches sight of Sly sleeping, and decides to play a trick on him; servants bring Sly to opulent sleeping quarters, and when he wakes up, they convince him that he’s an aristocrat who has been insane for a long time; traveling actors arrive, and he hires them to put on a play for Sly.)

The star of the frame tale is Christopher Sly, a poor man who, after an argument with the mistress of an inn over some broken drinking glasses, has fallen asleep outside the inn, dead drunk. This “beggar” [1] is a belligerent and pretentious fellow, we can tell, since before he fell asleep he was angrily rattling on to the hostess about his alleged ancestry: “Look in / the Chronicles,” Sly boasts to her after calling her a “baggage” (whore)—“we came in with Richard Conqueror” (210, Ind. 1.3-4).

Seeing the man in this sorry condition, fast asleep out of doors, a lord who has just arrived at the inn decides to play a rather mean trick on him: he will insist that he is a nobleman who has long suffered from insanity but is now recovered and owed all the benefits of his great wealth and status. [2]

At first, the Lord plans to carry on with this bit of theater of slow-rolling cruelty using only his present company of huntsmen and servants. Even with this limited cast, he is giddy with expectation: “What think you if he were conveyed to bed, / Wrapped in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers, / A most delicious banquet by he bed, / And brave attendants near him when he wakes” (210, Ind. 1.33-36)? This, thinks the Lord, would induce the poor beggar to “forget himself” (37), and that would be a capital entertainment.

The Lord spins an excellent scene for his huntsmen and servants, with each playing a part in deceiving Sly with a combination of fair words and beautiful accoutrements—all the trappings of a rich man that the Lord himself must be so accustomed to enjoy. The First Huntsman gets the jest: “he shall think by our true diligence / He is no less than what we say he is” (211, Ind. 1.67).

We may suppose that some of Shakespeare’s own audience members reflected on the irony proffered by this scene: several actors are feigning to be the servants of another actor who is himself pretending to be an aristocrat, a “Lord,” who is playing a trick on a commoner. Might it not be that, after all, there’s something to the notion that “the clothes make the person”? This is a line that’s usually uttered with contempt by Shakespearean characters, [3] but characters such as King Lear seem to come closer to the insight of how much deception and self-delusion go into the propping-up of sociopolitical rank, so that, as Lear says, “robes and furred gowns hide all.” [4]

When some players (actors) arrive by happy accident, the Lord enlists them in the jest, too, which opens up the possibility of a professional production. The Lord’s servant Bartholomew will play Sly’s wife, and if he plays his role well, there will be a comical but presumably touching recognition and recovery scene to be played out and enjoyed. The Lord’s main worry has been that his own servant-players will burst into laughter, but with the real actors coming aboard, that shouldn’t be a problem.

The Lord is confident that it will come off well, saying, “I know the boy will well usurp the grace, / Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman. / I long to hear him call the drunkard ‘husband’ … (212, Ind. 1.127-29). What Bartholomew (or Shakespeare’s own boy-actors, for that matter) might think of all this is another affair. [5]

Induction Scene 2 (213-16, Sly is offered food and clothing far beyond his station; he demands ale and beef, but the Lord and his servants say that choice is the result of his delusions; they tell him he’s happily married to a beautiful lady, and he asks for her; a page impersonates this “wife,” and shifts his attentions towards the opening of the play.)

Sly, this poor, common fellow, obviously does not belong to the aristocratic world that he now inhabits as a kind of “bubble” for the amusement of others. At first, he resists the others’ attempts to delude him into accepting fiction for fact: “What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christo- / pher Sly, old Sly’s son of Barton Heath, by birth a peddler, / by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, / and now by present profession a tinker?” (213, Ind. 2.16-19)

But soon, the show that’s being put on for Sly takes hold of his imagination, and he asks mainly himself, “Am I a lord? And have I such a lady? / Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now?” (214, Ind. 2.66-67) The thing that convinces him is the materiality of this strange vision: “I smell sweet savors and I feel soft things. / Upon my life, I am a lord indeed …” (214, Ind. 2.74-75). Sly begins to credit what he sees and hears around him, participating in the delightful fiction that the Lord, his servants, and the visiting players have woven for him.

By the end of the Second Induction, Christopher Sly is feeling fine, and it’s all poor Bartholomew, as his “wife,” can do to avoid a sexual encounter. The “wife” tells her lord, “your physicians have expressly charged, / In peril to incur your former malady, / That I should yet absent me from your bed” (216, Ind. 2.117-19). After this narrow escape, Sly is easily convinced that seeing a “pleasant comedy,” a “kind of history” (216, Ind. 2.125, 136), will bring him joy and stave off a recurrence of his melancholia. [6] So he sits down with his “wife” and prepares to enjoy the play.

What is the connection to the play that we are about to read or watch? Well, as the Norton editors point out, all three plots in The Taming of the Shrew involve transformation: this theme runs through the Katherina-Petruccio love plot, the Bianca plot, and the Induction’s two sections. [7] Perhaps not much is to be made of Sly’s failure to achieve a permanent change in social status. In Shakespeare’s version (unlike its predecessor The Taming of a Shrew), Sly is falling asleep by the end of 1.1, and we hear no more about him.

Sly hasn’t earned marital happiness—his pretend-wife’s obedience is not to him but to the Lord who is deceiving him. The point is not, of course, that Christopher Sly’s transformation could have been permanent, but instead that by forethought and effort, Petruccio the “shrew-tamer” will succeed in his match where the pretend lord has failed.

There may be an intended comparison between the Lord’s audience—the recognition and recovery scene between Sly and Bartholomew being the main object of their mirth—and Shakespeare’s audience, whose attentions focus on the personal drama between the actor who plays Petruccio and the boy-actor who plays Katherina Minola, the “shrew.”

ACT 1

Act 1, Scene 1 (216-22, Lucentio and his servant Tranio have just arrived in Padua, where the master means to steep himself in moral philosophy; they observe Signor Baptista with his two daughters, Bianca and Katherina; Baptista tells Bianca that she can’t marry until her “difficult” elder sister Katherina has a mate; Bianca’s suitors Gremio and Hortensio realize they must find a suitable husband for Katherina; Lucentio falls in love with Bianca, and Tranio says he’ll impersonate Lucentio at home while Lucentio will play the role of a tutor who can instruct Bianca; Lucentio and Tranio switch clothes to initialize this scheme.)

As Lucentio of Pisa tells his servant Tranio, he has come to Padua to cast himself into a deeper world than he has known up to now, and his declared intent is to look more discerningly into moral philosophy, or “virtue,” [8] with the goal of attaining “happiness / By virtue specially to be achieved” (217, 1.1.18-19). As he says, “I have Pisa left / And am to Padua come as he that leaves / A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep …” (217, 1.1.21-23).

Obviously, since Lucentio lives and breathes in a comic play, this high-minded goal will not outlive his first chance of finding love in Padua. Tranio, a clever servant who might have just stepped out of a comedy by Plautus or Terence, is quick to suggest that Lucentio need hardly reject the pleasure principle: “Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray, / Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks / As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured” (217, 1.1.31-33). Tranio speaks like a true Epicurean, not a dour Stoic. [9]

As Lucentio enters town, we are treated to a scene that sets the stage for all that follows: one Signor Baptista, a wealthy Paduan, enters along with his two daughters, Katherina and Bianca, and the latter’s two suitors, Gremio [10] and Hortensio. Lucentio and Tranio listen in as Baptista declares his conditions for Bianca’s hand in marriage. He is, as he repeats to the suitors, determined “not to bestow my youngest daughter / Before I have a husband for the elder” (217, 1.1.50-51).

Are there any takers where Katherina is concerned? asks Baptista. The clear answer is “no,” which is not surprising considering that the lady threatens to knock Hortensio over the head with a “three-legged stool” (218, 1.1.64) so hard that she will draw blood. Katherina is not, she declares loudly, interested in marrying anyone at all, much less Hortensio.

This situation is standard comic fare: an eager suitor faces an obstinate father. In this case, the obstinate parent isn’t imperious or cruel. In fact, he’s affectionate and protective towards his youngest daughter in particular. But in many comic plays we see the specter of the “angry father,” the senex iratus, [11] invoked, only to be dispelled as the play reaches its happy conclusion.

Of course, the pickings for Katherina and Bianca don’t look so fine here in Padua—Hortensio seems to be a silly fellow, and Gremio, as mentioned just above, is a stock “pantaloon” from the Italian commedia dell’arte theater (a sixteenth-century phenomenon). [12] Gremio and Hortensio are at least men of substance, and their considerable property and assets make them contenders since Renaissance marriage has much to do with securing dynastic wealth and status. Still, if these men are all that is on offer, the field should be open to any adventurous newcomer.

When Lucentio espies Bianca, his initial declarations about studying virtue are forgotten without further ado: in ancient and early modern lore, “the eyes have it”: vision is represented as the most powerful and transformative of the five senses, especially when it comes to love, which strikes at a person like an outside force. [13]

So it’s love at first sight for Lucentio, struck with Cupid’s invisible arrow: he admits early on to Tranio, “But see, while idly I stood looking on, / I found the effect of love-in-idleness …” (219, 1.1.146-47). [14] A little later, after hearing Baptista voice his willingness to employ suitable tutors for Bianca and Katherina, Lucentio seeks Tranio’s counsel, and the servant suggests that he, Lucentio, should serve as one of the schoolmasters that Baptista wants to commission.

But how to pull it off? As Tranio says bleakly, they need to come by a “Lucentio” as man about town to cover the real Lucentio’s amorous scheming as Bianca’s tutor. Here, Lucentio comes up with the best plan: Tranio will play a supportive role, directly suing for Bianca’s hand under the name of Lucentio himself, the better to keep attention away from the real master’s efforts. Lucentio tells him, “Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead, / Keep house and port and servants, as I should …” (221, 1.1.198-99). The master and his servant will switch places.

Lucentio appears to deceive his servant Biondello about the purpose of the disguisings, telling him that he is wanted for a homicide he supposedly committed during a quarrel. Now, he tells Biondello, keeping his identity hidden is a life-or-death matter for the time being.

Meanwhile, Hortensio and Gremio realize that their task must be to ensure that Katherina ends up married (happily or otherwise). That’s the only way they two will have any chance to win Bianca’s love.

Act 1, Scene 2 (222-28, Petruccio and his servant Grumio have just made their way to Padua; Hortensio at once suggests that Petruccio try to win over Katherina, and the young man agrees; he also agrees to palm off a disguised Hortensio to Baptista as a music tutor named Licio; Gremio shows up with Lucentio, who has taken the persona of a schoolmaster named Cambio; Tranio enters, playing the role of Lucentio and telling the others that he means to woo Bianca; Gremio, Hortensio, and Tranio-as-Lucentio make a deal to help Petruccio succeed with Katherina.)

Enter Petruccio of Verona, whom we first see engaging in a struggle with his servant Grumio, which, with its physical slapstick quality (if not necessarily its malapropisms) would be at home in a Three Stoogesfilm. Petruccio keeps insisting that Grumio should “knock me here soundly” (222, 1.2.8) and the like, which Grumio seems to misunderstand not as a command to knock on the door of Petruccio’s old friend Hortensio but rather as an order to hit Petruccio himself on the head. Hortensio seems to take Grumio’s side of the quarrel, but no matter that.

What matters is that Petruccio has just come into his inheritance: his father has died, and so Petruccio is his own man, as the saying goes. He is free from parental and financial hindrances, and therefore he’s just the one to serve as a capital shrew-tamer. Petruccio’s liberated status distinguishes him from Lucentio, as we will find later on.

While Lucentio has come initially to Padua to study moral philosophy, Petruccio shows no such inclination. Instead, he has traveled to this city of learning for an eminently practical reason: as he puts the matter to Hortensio, “Antonio, my father, is deceased, / And I have thrust myself into this maze, / Haply to wive and thrive as best I may” (223, 1.2.52-54). Petruccio’s two key objectives are, we notice immediately, so closely allied that they rhyme.

What’s love (in the deeper sense) got to do with it? Nothing—at least at the outset. This Veronese gentleman has also “come abroad to see the world” (223, 1.2.56), but it’s clear that wiving and thriving are Petruccio’s first two imperatives. Hortensio sees an opening in this state of affairs, and makes haste to bring up the availability of one Katherina Minola, indomitable shrew. Hortensio is entirely honest with Petruccio about the young lady’s difficult personality, but plays up her wealth.

This quality suits Petruccio just fine, for he declares without hesitation, “I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; / If wealthily, then happily in Padua” (223, 1.2.73-74). This may strike us today as a disreputable and even cutthroat admission on his part, but in Shakespeare’s day, “fortune-hunting” by eligible bachelors for rich wives was not universally frowned upon. [15] We shouldn’t, therefore, make too much of what may be our distasteful first impression: Petruccio’s intentions are probably no worse than those of a great many seventeenth-century gentlemen.

Petruccio’s insouciance regarding such an important consideration further distinguishes him from Lucentio. In these two male characters, at least at the outset, we see two aspects of courtship and marriage: Lucentio follows the sway of his erotic passion and means to win true love from his Bianca, while Petruccio favors the imperatives of money and status, which were indeed often the primary concerns of the moneyed and titled classes in England and elsewhere. [16]

Despite Hortensio’s further descriptions of Katherina’s difficult personality and reputation, Petruccio is glad to hear of this possibility, and shows considerable confidence in his ability to deal with anything of the sort: “Tell me her father’s name and ‘tis enough, / For I will board her, though she chide as loud / As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack” (224, 1.2.92-94). In return for the necessary information, Petruccio offers to present Hortensio as the music schoolmaster “Licio” so he can woo Bianca in that guise.

In his conversation with Petruccio, Hortensio shrewdly recognizes a rather modern-sounding truth about what old Baptista is up to: “He hath the jewel of my life in hold, / His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca, / And her withholds from me and other more …” (224, 1.2.116-18). Baptista, suggests Hortensio, is at some level yoking Bianca’s match to Katherina’s bad prospects so he can keep his younger daughter the center of his own attentions rather than give her to another man. This kind of dynamic—sexual jealousy between parents and children—is at the heart of the so-called “Freudian family romance.” [17]

Meanwhile, Gremio has hired Lucentio to woo Bianca for him in the guise of “Cambio,” a tutor in poetry. He seems proud of his cleverness when he informs his rival Hortensio of this plan, and seems unaware that Lucentio will be acting in his own self-interest, not trying to help an old man steal the heart of a beautiful young woman. Gremio is pleased to hear from Hortensio that Petruccio has agreed to try his luck with the indomitable Katherina, which would of course clear the way for these rivals to win the hand of Bianca—or so they flatter themselves.

At this point, Tranio enters as Lucentio, with the intent of wooing Bianca in the service of the real Lucentio. When Hortensio and Gremio try to ward him off of wooing Bianca, Tranio palpably enjoys the opportunity to behave arrogantly toward these higher-status men. He asks them pointedly, “Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free / For me as for you?” (227, 1.2.229-30) All the same, the three men bury their differences in mutual good will toward the brave Petruccio, in whose upcoming pursuit of Katherina they place their hopes for success with Bianca.

Petruccio, for his part, extols his own abilities as thoroughly as a modern-day boxing promoter exalts his client before a major bout: “Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, / And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?” (226, 1.2.220-21) This, and much more from Petruccio, who might do well to become acquainted with the champion boxer Mike Tyson’s famous quip, which runs (to paraphrase), “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” [18]

ACT 2

Act 2, Scene 1 (228-37, Baptista stops Katherina’s abuse of Bianca; Petruccio introduces Hortensio to Baptista as music teacher “Licio”; Gremio introduces Lucentio as language tutor “Cambio”; Tranio-as-Lucentio says he means to marry Bianca, while Petruccio wants Katherina; Baptista says Petruccio must first win Katherina’s heart; Petruccio and Katherina argue; Petruccio tricks Baptista into thinking Katherina loves him but is pretending to hate him; Katherina’s wedding is set; Baptista entertains Gremio and Tranio-as-Lucentio’s pitches for Bianca; Tranio-Lucentio wins over Bianca, provided that Lucentio’s father, Vincentio, delivers the required dowry; Tranio-Lucentio now needs to find a temporary “Vincentio.”)

Katherina is evidently jealous of her younger sister Bianca, and is even restraining her physically in order to extract information from her. Kate’s horizons must be quite limited if she is worried about the attentions of the likes of Gremio and Hortensio.

Petruccio begins his quest by feigning ignorance about Katherina’s true temperament, and he generously offers everything he has in pledge of faith. Baptista, suitably impressed and no doubt relieved that he might soon be unburdened of this difficult daughter, nonetheless insists on one point: Petruccio must win Katherina’s love, and he shall have her only when, says Baptista, “the special thing is obtained— / That is her love, for that is all in all” (230, 2.1.128-29).

Petruccio makes light of this demand, saying that he is a “rough” (231, 2.1.137) man and no child when it comes to romance. He is encouraged by Katherina’s deplorable abuse of “Licio” (Hortensio): she seems like a suitable challenge for him.

Petruccio’s opening gambit is to call Katherina what he wants her to become, even though she is at present exactly the opposite. “Oh, the kindest Kate!” (235, 2.1.305) he describes her to Tranio and Gremio. He parries wits with her, physically detains her just as she had done to her sister (though the stage directions don’t indicate that he knows about this), and boldly sets forth a timetable, with the marriage to be made on Sunday. Petruccio’s outrageous “kiss me, Kate” strategy (235, 2.1.322) only works, to be sure, because there’s mutual attraction between the pair.

A lot depends on the actors here (and with original productions, of course, that would have been even more the case, as the “Katherina” character would have been a boy-actor), as the excellent productions starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and Sarah Bader and John Cleese, respectively, show. The play revolves around what makes a fitting couple. Petruccio is himself a bold and outspoken man, so Katherina’s fiery quality is a draw for him, at least at first. he wants an obedient wife, but likes the challenge of earning that obedience and training his choice to suit his will.

In any case, Petruccio declares peremptorily, “We will be married o’Sunday,” even in the teeth of Katherina’s earlier pronouncement, “I’ll see thee hanged on Sunday first” (234, 2.1.297). Baptista was already impressed, having congratulated Petruccio a few lines back: “God send you joy, Petruccio, ’tis a match” (235, 2.1.317).

Gremio and Tranio (as Lucentio) pitch their wealth when talk with Baptista turns to dowries for Bianca, and Tranio does such a good job of lying that now he must find himself a fake father to “make good” on his fake promises. The extent of patriarchal authority is a main concern in comedy, and Shakespeare here offers a fine, if temporary, overturning of that concern in that “A child shall get a sire …” (237, 2.1.409).

Shakespeare isn’t by any means what we would call a feminist, but he has a lot of fun at the expense of male authority: As we will soon see, Vincentio, an eminently sensible and respectable father-figure, is for a time at the whim of his deceiving son Lucentio and that son’s servant Tranio.

ACT 3

Act 3, Scene 1 (237-39, Lucentio-Cambio and Hortensio-Licio make their pitches to Bianca; Hortensio-Licio registers Lucentio-Cambio’s passion for Bianca and vows to give up his quest if she reacts favorably to such a lower-class suitor as he thinks “Cambio” to be.)

Lucentio’s wooing of Bianca in the pauses between Latin lines goes well enough because, while he is parsing the lines, he uses each pause to reveal his true identity. Hortensio is insulted at the rapidity with which Bianca’s attentions turn towards such a young “stale” (Katherina had earlier used this word to mean “whore,” but here it means something like “good-for-nothing fellow”). Alone, Hortensio forswears any further interest in such an unwise girl: “If once I find thee ranging, / Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing” (239, 3.1.90).

Act 3, Scene 2 (239-44, Petruccio is running terribly behind on the way to his own wedding, which humiliates the waiting Katherina; finally, he shows up dressed absurdly; Gremio says that Petruccio makes a point of behaving like a fool at the wedding; he won’t stay for the supper after the wedding; and demands that Katherina accompany him in his departure; he forces her to do so, all the while supposedly protecting her from “interference” by her friends and family.)

Now Katherina, who fears herself about to be jilted at the wedding place, laments that Petruccio hasn’t yet shown up for his own wedding: “I must forsooth be forced / To give my hand opposed against my heart / Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen, / Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure” (239, 3.2.8-11). When he appears in the guise of a carnivalesque fool riding a broken-down horse, she is still more ashamed. Katherina wants propriety and ceremony observed. She wants a conventional wedding that, presumably, would betoken respectability and security.

Tranio tries to defend the absent Petruccio, but Baptista, like his daughter, is justifiably offended at the man’s behavior. When Katherina dashes off in tears, Baptista says, “Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep, / For such an injury would vex a very saint, / Much more a shrew of impatient humor” (240, 3.2.27-29). Biondello’s description of Petruccio as he nears Baptista’s house does nothing to improve matters, and soon the madcap gentleman is at the scene in all his preposterous sartorial splendor, demanding to know, “Where is my lovely bride?” (241, 3.2.86)

Even Tranio tries to talk some sense into Petruccio, saying, “See not your bride in these unreverent robes” (241, 3.2.106). But it’s no use trying to move him from his course, and he vows to go see her looking just as he does, and to marry her the same way: “To me she’s married, not unto my clothes” (242, 3.2.111).

Left behind, Tranio has a word with Lucentio, who is inclined to steal away with Bianca and marry her, thus putting an end to any serious opposition. Tranio says simply that they must find a stand-in “Vincentio” to serve as Lucentio’s temporary father. This substitute father will be needed to offer Baptista the agreed-upon dowry for Bianca.

Soon, Gremio returns with a description of the violent wedding that Petruccio and Katherina have just completed. It seems that when the priest dropped his book in alarm at the sound of Petruccio’s raised voice, the latter knocked the poor priest to the ground along with his book. Then while drinking a health to all with muscatel wine, [19] the groom “threw the sops all in the sexton’s face, having no other reason / But that his beard grew thin and hungerly / And seemed to ask him sops as he was drinking” (243, 3.2.167-70).

Petruccio immediately skips out on the wedding dinner, saying little more than, “I must hence, and farewell to you all” (243, 3.2.191). He insists that Katherina accompany him, and her initial refusal has no effect, as he says to everyone within hearing, “I will be master of what is mine own. / 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 …” (244, 3.2.222-25). This is as imperious a statement as we would expect from any biblical patriarch, and by today’s standards, it would be an intolerable piece of misogyny and domination.

Petruccio’s behavior is outlandish, but (if we want to be indulgent with him for a moment) the point of his actions is probably that marriage isn’t only about status and respectability, or security: it’s about the coming together of two people who must learn to live together. Shakespeare was enough of a bourgeois gentleman to appreciate Katherina’s need for respectability and security, but at the same time—as so often—he manages to see beyond these entry-level concerns and get to the deeper significance of an institutional act such as marriage.

Petruccio deploys the traditional notion that a wife is a man’s property, more or less like a piece of furniture of a valuable parcel of land. [20] Simply getting Kate to marry him is only the first stage of his plan—he still has much taming to do before his bride will be a “Kate / Conformable as other household Kates” (234, 2.1.274-75), as he had earlier called her.

Meanwhile, Lucentio’s match with Bianca gets a boost when Baptista asks him to replace the now-missing bridegroom at the wedding dinner, while Bianca will replace Katherina.

ACT 4

Act 4, Scene 1 (245-49, At Petruccio’s country estate, Grumio relates to Curtis the strange, tumultuous trip back to Petruccio’s place after the wedding rites; there, Petruccio assaults and abuses his servants; he won’t let the hungry Katherina have dinner because the food is allegedly overcooked; in soliloquy, Petruccio tells us that his method for taming Katherina is borrowed from falconry: she is to be kept hungry and deprived of sleep.)

As Grumio describes the trip back home for Curtis (whom he has just cuffed on the ear), it’s a madcap disaster. Katherina’s horse falls and dumps her, and her gallant husband can’t be bothered to help her up. He shows no regard for her, and then abuses the servants, rejecting the dinner they have prepared on the pretense of showing a delicate regard for his wife’s tastes in food and clothing.

Alone, Petruccio lets the audience in on his method: he will deny Katherina’s basic appetites any satisfaction—no food, sleep, or sex. She will get no satisfaction until that satisfaction can safely be associated with him as its facilitator. The Norton editors point out that Petruccio’s terms for this operation are borrowed from falconry—he will “curb” Kate just as a keeper would a bird of prey he wanted to train to hunt for him: “My falcon now is sharp and passing empty, / And till she stoop she must not be full gorged …” (248, 4.1.171-72). [21]

The gender assumption in Petruccio’s falconry metaphor is painfully obvious to us moderns: a woman can’t be allowed to beat a man at his own game, at least if the man knows what he’s about, as Petruccio does. Katherina has been violent, arbitrary, and willful, and Petruccio shows her—here more than ever—how much more frightening it is when a strong man behaves that way toward a woman he “owns.”

It should also be said that there’s quite a range in the concept of masculinity in this play and elsewhere in Shakespeare—he knows that “being a man” isn’t simply a biological matter. It is at least partly what we would call a symbolic construction, a position one occupies in the social and sexual order. [22] Petruccio clearly thinks being a man means keeping control of one’s wife.

Gremio, Hortensio, and Baptista are men, too, but they are unable to deal with Katherina, while Petruccio knows what to do and is willing to earn, as he must see it, the obedience that he professes to be his right as a proper husband. That stance may not endear him to us, but at least he does not expect obedience as a purely formal matter. [23] “This is a way,” he says, “to kill a wife with kindness, / And thus I’ll curb her made and headstrong humor. / He that knows better how to tame a shrew, / Now let him speak: ’tis charity to show” (249, 4.1.189-92).

At the broader level, England in Shakespeare’s time (and long afterwards, too) was a patriarchal culture in which men possessed most of the authority, learning, and wealth and mostly refused to share those things with women, but it’s also worth reminding ourselves that Shakespeare’s early work was written during the reign of Elizabeth I, one of the most brilliant and powerful monarchs in history. Still, it’s telling that the Queen was only able to act so strongly because she wisely refrained from marrying.

Act 4, Scene 2 (249-52, back in Padua, Hortensio-Licio gets Tranio-Lucentio to spy on Bianca and her suitor Lucentio-Cambio while they talk about their passion for each other; Hortensio, now in his own person, spurns Bianca and decides that he will marry a rich widow who fancies him; Hortensio then goes to see how Petruccio’s Katherina-taming project is going; meanwhile, Biondello has found an itinerant merchant who shows himself favorable to impersonating Vincentio, father of Lucentio.)

Hortensio, disappointed at what he considers the loose attentions of Bianca to Trania disguised as Lucentio, forswears his quest for beauty and looks instead to the kindness of a widow whom he knows will accept him. Tranio the false Lucentio cagily agrees, leaving the real Lucentio sole suitor to Bianca, who has been aware of the real Lucentio’s scheme since Act 3, Scene 1, when he revealed his true identity to her. She is happy for Hortensio (the former “Licio”), saying, “God give him joy” (250, 4.2.52).

The servant Biondello has found a pedant or merchant to serve as “Vincentio.” Poor Vincentio—any fool who just walked into town can serve his turn as the rich, accommodating father of a headstrong son. [24] Tranio easily convinces the Pedant that due to recent circumstances, anyone who comes from his native Mantua here to Padua will face execution. He then explains the scheme that the thankful Pedant will help to carry off.

Act 4, Scene 3 (252-56, At Petruccio’s place, Grumio tells Katherina that he will feed her a dinner that he hasn’t brought with him; Petruccio feeds Katherina, imperiously demanding that she show gratitude; the clothing merchant and tailor arrive with the cap and gown that Katherina wants to wear at Bianca’s wedding, but Petruccio doesn’t approve of them; Petruccio tells Katherina that if she wants to attend Bianca’s wedding, she had better agree with his every word, even if it’s ludicrously wrong.)

As for Kate, she sees Petruccio’s method, but not its purpose: she asks in anguish, “The more my wrong, the more his spite appears. / What, did he marry me to famish me?” (252, 4.3.2-3) Petruccio’s labors must, therefore, continue: he declares a perfectly nice cap and gown unsuitable for Kate, roundly abuses everyone around him, and laments that she will still be “crossing” his every word and deed. What really bothers Katherina, she admits to Grumio, is that every boorish thing he does, “He does it under name of perfect love …” (252, 4.3.12).

One of the most poignant moments in the play happens when Katherina insists that she will at least speak her mind, even if only regarding a cap: “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, / Or else my heart, concealing it, will break, / And rather than it shall. I will be free, / Even to the uttermost as I please in words” (253-54, 4.3.78-81). At this point, the usually spirited Katherina sounds almost like Job in her bitterness at the treatment visited upon her. [25] But Petruccio is more than equal to this situation, and pretends to know she dislikes the cap, wherefore he agrees with her supposed judgment.

Katherina’s potential gown fares no better than the beleaguered cap, and Petruccio cheerfully informs her that they will now set out for her father’s home: “Well, come, my Kate, we will unto your father’s / Even in these honest mean habiliments. / Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor, / For ‘tis the mind that makes the body rich” (255, 4.3.165-68).

The final insult of the scene comes when Katherina correctly points out that Petruccio’s travel plans are off the mark, time-wise. This leads him to complain that she keeps contradicting him, and that is intolerable. He says imperiously, “I will not go today, and ere I do, / It shall be what o’clock I say it is” (256, 4.3.190-91).

Act 4, Scene 4 (256-58, In Padua, “Vincentio” goes with Tranio-Lucentio to visit Baptista; Baptista approves “Vincentio’s” promise as security for Bianca’s dowry, and sends Lucentio-as-Cambio to inform Bianca about the plans for the impending marriage.)

While the Pedant as pretend-Vincentio talks dowry money with Baptista, Biondello advises Lucentio to marry Bianca on the sly, thereby presenting everyone else with a fait accompli. The negotiation is quickly concluded since Baptista is convinced that Tranio-as-Lucentio loves Bianca, she loves him in return, and pretend-Vincentio’s financial offer is sufficient. Tranio-as-Lucentio says that for privacy’s sake, the wedding should take place at his lodgings, not at Baptista’s home, and Lucentio-as-Cambio soon gets good advice from Biondello: it’s time for Lucentio to press his suit with Bianca, and, as the saying goes, “get to the church on time.”

Act 4, Scene 5 (258, Biondello informs Lucentio that the time is now right for him to elope with Bianca.)

Biondello hurries to make sure that the real Lucentio must marry while the time is opportune, as it now is, with Baptista on the way to talk further and dine with pretend-Vincentio and Tranio-as-Lucentio. Lucentio must, says Biondello, bring with him to church a priest and witnesses made ready for the occasion, and get the ceremony over with. It’s now or, most likely, never.

Act 4, Scene 6 (259-60, Katherina does as Petruccio has told her to do: she starts “agreeing” with everything he utters; as they travel to her father Baptista’s home, they meet the real Vincentio, who is on his way to Padua to see Lucentio; they head for Padua together.)

On the way back to Padua, Petruccio’s demands become still more extravagant and absurd: he insists that Katherina call day night, the sun the moon, and old Vincentio (the real one, that is, since they have just met him on the road to Padua) a young maiden. He then needles her when she gives in to his demands, pointing out that after all, the sun is the sun, the moon is the moon, and Vincentio is Vincentio rather than a beautiful young girl.

Realizing that if she doesn’t play along, things will go very badly for all concerned, Katherina readily gives in, saying, “Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, / And be it moon, or sun, or what you please. / And if you please to call it a rush candle, / Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me” (259, 4.6.12-15). This is not the same thing as really believing any of Petruccio’s crazy claims about the heavenly bodies of the gender and age of an elderly man.

This is a purely formal surrender on Katherina’s part, and apparently, that’s exactly what Petruccio wants—he’s more of an authoritarian than a totalitarian, it seems. He wants a “Kate / Conformable as other household Kates,” [26] not a lunatic or a cultist. Petruccio is playing a power game with Katherina: he knows that she doesn’t believe a word of his reality-bending nonsense, and in turn, she knows that he knows that. That is how a bully behaves: his lies don’t constitute a serious argument about truth, they’re about establishing dominance.

In this case, for the sake of “domestic harmony,” Katherina capitulates to her husband, as a traditional wife was generally expected to do. [27]

Petruccio breaks the news to Vincentio that “Lucentio” has no doubt by now managed to win Bianca’s hand, so they’re all related. What a small world! (Petruccio “knows” this, we may presume, on the basis of Tranio’s efforts as “Lucentio” back in 2.1.) Vincentio—the real one—doesn’t know what to think of it all.

Petruccio’s control over Katherina has put confidence in Hortensio, in case he should find his own bride, the widow, headstrong like her. Evidently, he finds Petruccio’s rough “homeopathic” shrew-taming procedure attractive and reassuring.

ACT 5

Act 5, Scene 1 (260-63, Bianca and Lucentio marry privately; Petruccio, Katherina, and real-Vincentio show up at Lucentio’s inn; the pretend-Vincentio refuses them entry; real-Vincentio condemns pretend-Vincentio and Tranio-Lucentio; real-Vincentio is close to being dragged away to jail, but then the real Lucentio enters with Bianca, asks pardon from real-Vincentio for marrying without his approval, and explains all the disguises.)

One last complication crops up: Vincentio and company finally make it to Padua, and when they knock at Lucentio’s house, within is the Pedant, false-Vincentio, peering out at them. Both Vincentios struggle for authenticity and authority over the current situation. Real-Vincentio finds himself facing charges of impersonating—himself! Things look very bad for Vincentio since, as Wordsworth would say, it seems that “The child is father of the man,” [28] and the child (or rather a servant impersonating the child) is invested in maintaining the subterfuge in which he is involved, as pretend-Lucentio. Biondello, too, tries to keep the lie going.

Fortunately, though—and just when Vincentio is starting have serious concerns about what might have happened to his son, the real Lucentio—that son comes forward as himself and clears up the case of mistaken identity and prevents his father from being hauled off to prison as an imposter. “Love wrought these miracles” says Lucentio; “Bianca’s love / Made me exchange my state with Tranio, / While he did bear my countenance in the town …” (263, 5.1.107-09). Lucentio explains that he is now lawfully married to Bianca.

The principal elders, Vincentio and Baptista, are not happy, but Vincentio nonetheless promises to make a fair deal with Baptista, coming on board in spite of the bad treatment to which he has been subjected. Nothing comes of his protestations about being revenged against Tranio. In some comedies, the senex iratus is a major obstacle, that really isn’t the case in The Taming of the Shrew. Neither man is imposing an impossible burden or barrier to the happiness of the key couples. Both are satisfied to see their children happily married.

What with all this commotion going on, Petruccio decides to test his wife again, so he utters “kiss me, Kate” (263, 5.1.125) for the second time, this time in the open street. Kate is shocked, but doesn’t put up much of a fight by now. [29] She delays a little with words of mild protest, but soon kisses him in all obedience.

This short delay may mean that “Kate” is more herself now, and so is Petruccio—neither spouse maintains an extreme pose of imposition or defiance, but seems more willing to “go with the flow” of the situation and respond sincerely. “Is not this well?” asks Petruccio, and Katherina does not disagree, at least so far as we can tell.

Act 5, Scene 2 (264-68, the play’s three couples attend the wedding feast; everyone makes fun of Petruccio, husband of a shrew; to get back at them, Petruccio bets Lucentio and Hortensio that Katherina will be the most obedient in responding to his demands; Bianca and the rich widow won’t come when called, but Katherina does; Petruccio sends Katherina to fetch the other two wives, and orders her to lecture these women on how to be wives: they must submit to their husbands in all things; Petruccio kisses his Kate, and it’s off to bed.)

The three happy couples get together for a feast at Lucentio’s. Hortensio’s new wife, the Widow, offers a provocative statement about Petruccio after he suggests that Hortensio is afraid of her: “He that is giddy thinks the world turns round” (264, 5.2.20). The significance of this phrase isn’t lost on the ever-sharp Katherina, who bluntly demands an explanation from the Widow. The latter, in turn, suggests that Petruccio supposes that since Katherina has been a shrew, the Widow must be one, too. Soon after this exchange, the three women—Katherina, Bianca, and the former Widow—withdraw from the room.

And now, with the men alone, Baptista pipes up with the view that Petruccio’s wife is apt to remain “the veriest shrew of all” (265, 5.2.64). Petruccio’s answer is to offer his fellow husbands a little wager: “Let’s each one send unto his wife, / And he whose wife is most obedient / To come at first when he doth send for her / Shall win the wager which we will propose” (265, 5.2.66-69).

Katherina wins the contest hands down since the other two women are still sitting by the fire and showing no inclination to return to the dinner table. Petruccio makes his wife fetch in the “froward” wives of Lucentio and Hortensio, and then, to the men’s great satisfaction, she lectures these other women about their duties.

What Katherina sets forth is an entirely traditional view of gender relations in the married state: a man must hazard all he has and provide security, and the woman must be helpful and obedient; she must “stand by her man.” In Katherina’s words, “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, / Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee …” (267, 5.2.146-47), and so forth. The whole affair sounds very much like Simone de Beauvoir’s critical summation of married life: the man will go out and prove himself in the wide world, and the woman will stay home in the domestic realm.

Katherina concludes her speech with a self-characterization of her sex that sounds almost like the words Milton would later give his narrator in Paradise Lost to describe prelapsarian Eve: “For contemplation hee and valour formd; / For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace; / Hee for God only, shee for God in him ….” [30]

Does she believe all this? Possibly, but it may also be that her supposed conformability is more conventional and goal-oriented than heartfelt or abjectly submissive. In other words, her willingness to “say the right words in the right order” may be a stratagem whereby she still hopes to maintain near-equilibrium in the match with her imperious husband Petruccio.

At least, as mentioned above, Petruccio acknowledges a certain need to earn his mastery of Kate, so we have in The Taming of the Shrew not so much a celebration of hollow patriarchal behavioral forms but instead a rollicking battle of the sexes in which the man and woman together give deeper meaning to a traditional view of gender relations and to the institution based upon that view: marriage, the central concern of many a comic play. [31]

Petruccio labors for his mastery, and demonstrates his mettle. He wants a conformable Kate, to be sure, but he probably wouldn’t be happy with anything other than a conformable Kate. Lucentio sees Petruccio’s act of taming as a “wonder” (268, 5.2.188), which suggests that he doesn’t fully understand what has happened between Kate and Petruccio. As Petruccio says to both Lucentio and Hortensio at the play’s conclusion, they are “sped.” They are the ones who will have to live with headstrong wives, while he may well go enjoy lasting domestic bliss with Katherina.

From the widest angle and aside from gender issues, the play provides a light exploration of love’s power to transform people, to alter suddenly and inexplicably their chosen path and declared intentions and to immerse them in a positive way in an active, not always kind world. This power is an at times almost magical constant in Shakespeare’s comedies, though it is not described in the same manner from play to play. [32]

There isn’t much idealizing of eroticism [33] in The Taming of the Shrew, but there’s a great deal of that valuable and yet dangerous intellectual activity in some other Shakespeare comedies [34] and in, say, Romeo and Juliet, especially where Romeo is concerned. In the tragic plays generally, love is often an intense and very real experience for the characters, but it can’t overcome the strength of malevolent or otherwise destructive forces, whether internal or external, that make a tragedy a tragedy.

In the romances, the power of love seems to be surrounded with mystery, just as in the most magnificent of those plays, The Tempest, Prospero enfolds the whole of life memorably with the statement, “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” [35]

Edition. Greenblatt, Stephen et al., editors. The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies + Digital Edition. 3rd ed. W. W. Norton, 2016. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-93861-6.

ENDNOTES

*To return to exact part of the text referenced by the endnotes below, left-click on the endnote’s numbered link. By contrast, the blue scroll-up button at the bottom right of the page returns to the top of the document.

[1] In the Second Induction, Christopher Sly describes himself not as a beggar, strictly, but as “by birth a peddler, / by education a cardmaker, / by transmutation a bear-herd, / and now by present profession a tinker” (213, Ind. 2.16-19). His irregular employment status most likely qualifies him as what he’s called, a “beggar.” See Victorian Web’s essay The 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law. See also the text of the Act for the Relief of the Poor. Anno xliii, Reginae Elizabethae at workhouses.org.uk. Accessed 1/2/2025.

[2] This is a time-honored device, one that can be traced at least as far back as The Arabian Nights. See Bullough, Geoffrey, editor. Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare. Vol. I. Early Comedies, Poems, Romeo and Juliet. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; New York: Columbia UP, 1961, first pub. 1957. Pg. 58.

[3] For example, there’s Kent’s contempt for Oswald in King Lear: “Nature disclaims in thee. / A tailor made thee.” See Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Folio with additions from the Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. Combined text 764-840. 789, 2.2.48.

[4] Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Folio with additions from the Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. Combined text 764-840. See 4.6.158.

[5] See Conor McGovern’s blog entry “Shakespeare’s Early Boy Players.” See also Patricia Reynolds’s entry “Kidnapped to Order: Child Actors in Shakespeare’s Day” in The National Archives Blog. Accessed 1/2/2025.

[6] The theory of the humors traces back to the Greek physician Hippocrates (c. 460-370 BCE): the four humors or bodily fluids are black bile (associated with the element earth), yellow bile (associated with fire), phlegm (associated with water), and blood (associated with air). A balanced amount of these fluids in the body were thought to maintain health and good temperament, while an excess of the first-mentioned (black bile) could make a person depressed or irritable; excess of the second (yellow bile) angry, ill-tempered; excess of the third (phlegm) taciturn, unemotional; excess of the fourth (blood) cheerful, amorous or bold, sometimes to the point of lechery or foolhardiness. See also “Funny Medicine: Hippocrates and the Four Humours” (Vaccines Work), which offers an excellent summary and diagram. Accessed 5/14/2024.

[7] See the Norton Introduction to the current text, 197-98.

[8] On Renaissance moral philosophy, see Britannica’s article by Peter Singer “History and Ethics: The Renaissance and the Reformation.” Accessed 11/3/2024.

[9] Epicureanism differs from Stoicism in recommending pleasure (though of the higher sort) as life’s aim.

[10] See Norton footnote #8 on pg. 217 about the Pantalone stock character in Commedia dell’Arte.

[11] The senex iratus is one of several stock characters in Greek and Roman comedy; his role is generally to impose obstacles and make a fool of himself. The miles gloriosus or braggart soldier is another such foolish character—his vanity and ego get him into trouble every time. Paroles in All’s Well That Ends Well is one Shakespearean example of this stock character. See also “What the Romans Found Funny.” Antigone Journal. Accessed 1/2/2025.

[12] For examples of these farcical skits from the Italian commedia dell’arte, see sites.google.com, “Lazzi.” Accessed 10/3/2024.

[13] This sort of “external” representation of Love is common throughout Classical Greek and Roman literature. A fine, concise example may be found in Sappho’s poetry. See fragment 47 at The Digital Sappho: Ἔρος δ᾿ ἐτίναξέ μοι / φρένας, ὠς ἄνεμος κὰτ ὄρος δρύσιν ἐμπέτων. “Love shook my / heart, like a wind bearing down a mountain takes an oak.” My translation.

[14] Norton footnote #7 for pg. 417 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream mentions this lore about the pansy flower, or “love-in-idleness,” or “Cupid’s flower.” Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 406-53. See image of pansy flower. Wikimedia Commons. Accessed 10/21/2024.

[15] For example, that Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice is something of a fortune-hunter would not necessarily have marked him for opprobrium in Shakespeare’s day—he is of sufficiently high social standing to make his enterprise seem respectable. See Marjorie Garber’s Shakespeare after All. New York: Anchor Books, 2004. Pg. 287.

[16] On the issue of money in the context of courtship and marriage, see Kalynn Osburn’s Feb. 14, 2022 essay “Courtship & Marriage in the Tudor Era.” The author addresses concepts such as dowries and jointures. Ohio Renaissance Festival. Accessed 11/3/2024.

[17] On the Freudian “family romance” in Shakespeare, worth noting is Freud’s disciple Ernest Jones, who makes a case for an Oedipal reading of Hamlet in his 1910 essay, “The Oedipus-complex as an Explanation of Hamlet’s Mystery: A Study in Motive.” (Wikisource.) Accessed 6/1/2024.

[18] See Quora response, “Did Mike Tyson say everybody has a plan until …?” Accessed 12/20/2024.

[19] Norton editors’ footnote 2 on pg. 243. Muscatel wine is wine that contains little cakes.

[20] On marriage, see the Folger Shakespeare Library’s article “Wooing and Wedding: Courtship and Marriage in Early Modern England.” By Karen Lyon, June 8, 2018. Folger.edu. Accessed 10/3/2024.

[21] On falconry, a good starting point is “Falconry and Hawking” in Internet Shakespeare Editions. U. of Victoria, Canada. Accessed 9/1/2024. See also George Turberville’s 1611 Book of Falconry.

[22] Macbeth’s rebuke to Lady Macbeth’s demands is instructive: “I dare do all that may become a man. / Who dares do more is none.” Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. In The Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies, 3rd ed. 917-69. See 928, 1.7.46-47.

[23] Even in his comedies, Shakespeare consistently explores how religious, social, and political values become hollow over time and stand in need of rejuvenation. Measure for Measure is a good example.

[24] In Elizabethan comedy—adjusting to the extent we can for epistemological shifts that occur over several centuries—the concept of what we would call individual identity is usually not a key concern. There are certainly some strong characters—Rosalind in As You Like It comes to mind—but often, it seems as if characters’ identities are all but interchangeable, or at least quite simple in terms of “interiority.”

[25] See the 1599 Geneva Bible, Ch. 23.3-4, at which point Job says, “⁴I would plead the cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. ⁵I would know the words, that he would answer me, and would understand what he would say unto me.” Biblegateway.com. Accessed 1/1/2025.

[26] Current edition, 234, 2.1.274-75.

[27] On marriage relations in Elizabethan England, see Marriage and Family in Shakespeare’s England (Newberry).

[28] Wordsworth’s line is from “My Heart Leaps Up.” Poets.org. Accessed 1/2/2025.

[29] The phrase “Kiss Me, Kate” inspired a famous Broadway musical in 1949, one of the stars of which was this commentary author’s namesake, Alfred Drake.

[30] See Paradise Lost, Book 4.297-99. Milton Reading Room. Accessed 1/2/2025.

[31] There is quite a range of marriage types and qualities in Shakespearean plays, in all of his subgenres: from Lucentio’s being forced to marry the prostitute he got pregnant in Measure for Measure to purely physical bonds such as that between Touchstone and Audrey in As You Like It, all the way to ideal unions, potentially, like that of Rosalind and Orlando in As You Like It, or Miranda and Ferdinand in The Tempest.

[32] Helena says, “Things base and vile, holding no quantity, / Love can transpose to form and dignity.” Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Quarto. In The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 406-53. See 411, 1.1.232-33.

[33] The phrase “idealizing eroticism” refers to the common tendency to spiritualize what might otherwise be a frankly sexual desire, relationship, or act. It underlies, for example, the romantic dimension of medieval chivalry and troubadour poetry, including the Petrarchan love poetry tradition (Petrarch’s beloved Laura), Dante’s Beatrice, etc.

[34] As You Like It and Twelfth Night come to mind, though in both cases the topic of idealizing sexual love is as much a matter for criticism as it is for unironic representation.

[35] Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. In The Norton Shakespeare: Romances and Poems, 3rd ed. 397-448. See 437, 4.1.156-58.