William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew

ACT IV. 1. SCENE I. A hall in PETRUCHIO'S country house. (continued)

GRUMIO.
Tell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me, thou
shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her horse;
thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was
bemoiled; how he left her with the horse upon her; how he beat me
because her horse stumbled; how she waded through the dirt to
pluck him off me: how he swore; how she prayed, that never prayed
before; how I cried; how the horses ran away; how her bridle was
burst; how I lost my crupper; with many things of worthy memory,
which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienced to
thy grave.

CURTIS.
By this reckoning he is more shrew than she.

GRUMIO.
Ay; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find
when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth
Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the
rest; let their heads be sleekly combed, their blue coats brush'd
and their garters of an indifferent knit; let them curtsy with
their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my master's
horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready?

CURTIS.
They are.

GRUMIO.
Call them forth.

CURTIS.
Do you hear? ho! You must meet my master to countenance my
mistress.

GRUMIO.
Why, she hath a face of her own.

CURTIS.
Who knows not that?

GRUMIO.
Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her.

CURTIS.
I call them forth to credit her.

GRUMIO.
Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.

[Enter several SERVANTS.]

NATHANIEL.
Welcome home, Grumio!

PHILIP.
How now, Grumio!

JOSEPH.
What, Grumio!