William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew

ACT I. 1. SCENE I. Padua. A public place. (continued)

LUCENTIO.
Hark, Tranio! thou mayst hear Minerva speak.

HORTENSIO.
Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?
Sorry am I that our good will effects
Bianca's grief.

GREMIO.
Why will you mew her up,
Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
And make her bear the penance of her tongue?

BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv'd.
Go in, Bianca.

[Exit BIANCA.]

And for I know she taketh most delight
In music, instruments, and poetry,
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house
Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,
Prefer them hither; for to cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up;
And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;
For I have more to commune with Bianca.

[Exit.]

KATHERINA.
Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not?
What! shall I be appointed hours, as though, belike,
I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!

[Exit.]

GREMIO.
You may go to the devil's dam: your gifts are so good
here's none will hold you. Their love is not so great,
Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it fairly
out; our cake's dough on both sides. Farewell: yet, for the love I
bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit man to
teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish him to her
father.

HORTENSIO.
So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray. Though
the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked parle, know now, upon
advice, it toucheth us both,--that we may yet again have access to
our fair mistress, and be happy rivals in Bianca's love,--to labour
and effect one thing specially.

GREMIO.
What's that, I pray?

HORTENSIO.
Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

GREMIO.
A husband! a devil.

HORTENSIO.
I say, a husband.