Part 33

A strange courtship they made of it. She in loud and angry terms showing him how justly she had gained the name of Shrew, while he still praised her sweet and courteous words, till at length, hearing her father coming, he said (intending to make as quick a wooing as possible):

“Sweet Katharine, let us set this idle chat aside, for your father has consented that you shall be my wife, your dowry is agreed on, and whether you will or no I will marry you.”

And now Baptista entering, Petruchio told him his daughter had received him kindly and that she had promised to be married the next Sunday. This Katharine denied, saying she would rather see him hanged on Sunday, and reproached her father for wishing to wed her to such a madcap ruffian as Petruchio. Petruchio desired her father not to regard her angry words, for they had agreed she should seem reluctant before him, but that when they were alone he had found her very fond and loving; and he said to her:

“Give me your hand, Kate. I will go to Venice to buy you apparel against our wedding-day. Provide the feast, father, bid the wedding guests. I will be sure to bring rings, fine array, and rich clothes, that my Katharine may be fine. And kiss me, Kate, for we will be married on Sunday.”

On the Sunday all the wedding guests were assembled, but they waited long before Petruchio came, and Katharine wept for vexation to think that Petruchio had only been making a jest of her. At last, however, he appeared; but he brought none of the bridal finery be had promised Katharine, nor was he dressed himself like a bridegroom, but in strange, disordered attire, as if he meant to make a sport of the serious business he came about; and his servant and the very horses on which they rode were in like manner in mean and fantastic fashion habited.

Petruchio could not be persuaded to change his dress. He said Katharine was to be married to him, and not to his clothes. And, finding it was in vain to argue with him, to the church they went, he still behaving in the same mad way, for when the priest asked Petruchio if Katharine should be his wife, he swore so loud that she should, that, all amazed, the priest let fall his book, and as he stooped to take it up this mad-brained bridegroom gave him such a cuff that down fell the priest and his book again. And all the while they were being married he stamped and swore so that the high-spirited Katharine trembled and shook with fear. After the ceremony was over, while they were yet in the church, he called for wine, and drank a loud health to the company, and threw a sop which was at the bottom of the glass full in the sexton’s face, giving no other reason for this strange act than that the sexton’s beard grew thin and hungerly, and seemed to ask the sop as he was drinking. Never sure was there such a mad marriage; but Petruchio did but put this wildness on the better to succeed in the plot he had formed to tame his shrewish wife.

Baptista had provided a sumptuous marriage feast, but when they returned from church, Petruchio, taking hold of Katharine, declared his intention of carrying his wife home instantly, and no remonstrance of his father-in-law, or angry words of the enraged Katharine, could make him change his purpose. He claimed a husband’s right to dispose of his wife as he pleased, and away he hurried Katharine off; he seeming so daring and resolute that no one dared attempt to stop him.

Petruchio mounted his wife upon a miserable horse, lean and lank, which he had picked out for the purpose, and, himself and his servant no better mounted, they journeyed on through rough and miry ways, and ever when this horse of Katharine’s stumbled he would storm and swear at the poor jaded beast, who could scarce crawl under his burthen, as if he had been the most passionate man alive.

At length, after a weary journey, during which Katharine had heard nothing but the wild ravings of Petruchio at the servant and the horses, they arrived at his house. Petruchio welcomed her kindly to her home, but he resolved she should have neither rest nor food that night. The tables were spread, and supper soon served; but Petruchio, pretending to find fault with every dish, threw the meat about the floor, and ordered the servants to remove it away; and all this he did, as he said, in love for his Katharine, that she might not eat meat that was not well dressed. And when Katharine, weary and supperless, retired to rest, he found the same fault with the bed, throwing the pillows and bedclothes about the room, so that she was forced to sit down in a chair, where, if, she chanced to drop asleep, she was presently awakened by the loud voice of her husband storming at the servants for the ill-making of his wife’s bridal-bed.

The next day Petruchio pursued the same course, still speaking kind words to Katharine, but, when she attempted to eat, finding fault with everything that was set before her, throwing the breakfast on the floor as he had done the supper; and Katharine, the haughty Katharine, was fain to beg the servants would bring her secretly a morsel of food; but they, being instructed by Petruchio, replied they dared not give her anything unknown to their master.

“Ah,” said she, “did he marry me to famish me? Beggars that come to my father’s door have food given them. But I, who never knew what it was to entreat for anything, am starved for want of food, giddy for want of sleep, with oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed; and that which vexes me more than all, he does it under the name of perfect love, pretending that if I sleep or eat, it were present death to me.”

Here the soliloquy was interrupted by the entrance of Petruchio. He, not meaning she should be quite starved, had brought her a small portion of meat, and he said to her:

“How fares my sweet Kate? Here, love, you see how diligent I am. I have dressed your meat myself. I am sure this kindness merits thanks. What, not a word? Nay, then you love not the meat, and all the pains I have taken is to no purpose.” He then ordered the servant to take the dish away.

Extreme hunger, which had abated the pride of Katharine, made her say, though angered to the heart, “I pray you let it stand.”

But this was not all Petruchio intended to bring her to, and he replied, “The poorest service is repaid with thanks, and so shall mine before you touch the meat.”

On this Katharine brought out a reluctant “I thank you, sir.”

And now he suffered her to make a slender meal, saying: “Much good may it do your gentle heart, Kate. Eat apace! And now, my honey love, we will return to your father’s house and revel it as bravely as the best, with silken coats and caps and golden rings, with ruffs and scarfs and fans and double change of finery.” And to make her believe be really intended to give her these gay things, he called in a tailor and a haberdasher, who brought some new clothes he had ordered for her, and then, giving her plate to the servant to take away, before she had half satisfied her hunger, he said:

“What, have you dined?”

The haberdasher presented a cap, saying, “Here is the cap your worship bespoke.” On which Petruchio began to storm afresh, saying the cap was molded in a porringer and that it was no bigger than a cockle or walnut shell, desiring the haberdasher to take it away and make it bigger.

Katharine said, “I will have this; all gentlewomen wear such caps as these.”

“When you are gentle,” replied Petruchio, “you shall have one, too, and not till then.”

The meat Katharine had eaten had a little revived her fallen spirits, and she said: “Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak, and speak I will. I am no child, no babe. Your betters have endured to hear me say my mind; and if you cannot, you had better stop your ears.”

Petruchio would not hear these angry words, for he had happily discovered a better way of managing his wife than keeping up a jangling argument with her; therefore his answer was:

“Why, you say true; it is a paltry cap, and I love you for not liking it.”

“Love me, or love me not,” said Katharine, “I like the cap, and I will have this cap or none.”

“You say you wish to see the gown,” said Petruchio, still affecting to misunderstand her.

The tailor then came forward and showed her a fine gown he had made for her. Petruchio, whose intent was that she should have neither cap nor gown, found as much fault with that.

“Oh, mercy, Heaven!” said he, “what stuff is here! What, do you call this a sleeve? it is like a demi-cannon, carved up and down like an apple tart.”