William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew

ACT V. 2. SCENE II. A room in LUCENTIO'S house. (continued)

PETRUCHIO.
How! She's busy, and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?

GREMIO.
Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

PETRUCHIO.
I hope, better.

HORTENSIO.
Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.

[Exit BIONDELLO.]

PETRUCHIO.
O, ho! entreat her!
Nay, then she must needs come.

HORTENSIO.
I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.

[Re-enter BIONDELLO.]

Now, where's my wife?

BIONDELLO.
She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come; she bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIO.
Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endur'd!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress; say,
I command her come to me.

[Exit GRUMIO.]

HORTENSIO.
I know her answer.

PETRUCHIO.
What?

HORTENSIO.
She will not.

PETRUCHIO.
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

[Re-enter KATHERINA.]

BAPTISTA.
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!

KATHERINA.
What is your sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIO.
Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?

KATHERINA.
They sit conferring by the parlour fire.

PETRUCHIO.
Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to come,
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

[Exit KATHERINA.]