The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Read online

  PROTEUS

  She says it is a fair one.

  THURIO

  Nay, then, the wanton lies. My face is black.

  PROTEUS

  But pearls are fair; and the old saying is,

  ‘Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies’ eyes’.

  JULIA (aside)

  ’Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies’ eyes,

  For I had rather wink than look on them.

  THURIO

  How likes she my discourse?

  PROTEUS

  Ill, when you talk of war.

  THURIO

  But well when I discourse of love and peace.

  JULIA (aside)

  But better indeed when you hold your peace.

  THURIO

  What says she to my valour?

  PROTEUS

  O sir, she makes no doubt of that.

  JULIA (aside)

  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.

  THURIO

  What says she to my birth?

  PROTEUS

  That you are well derived.

  JULIA (aside)

  True: from a gentleman to a fool.

  THURIO

  Considers she my possessions?

  PROTEUS

  O ay, and pities them.

  THURIO Wherefore?

  JULIA (aside)

  That such an ass should owe them.

  PROTEUS

  That they are out by lease.

  JULIA Here comes the Duke.

  Enter the Duke

  DUKE

  How now, Sir Proteus. How now, Thurio.

  Which of you saw Eglamour of late?

  THURIO

  Not I.

  PROTEUS Nor I.

  DUKE Saw you my daughter?

  PROTEUS Neither.

  DUKE

  Why then, she’s fled unto that peasant Valentine,

  And Eglamour is in her company.

  ’Tis true, for Friar Laurence met them both

  As he in penance wandered through the forest.

  Him he knew well, and guessed that it was she,

  But being masked, he was not sure of it.

  Besides, she did intend confession

  At Patrick’s cell this even, and there she was not.

  These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;

  Therefore I pray you stand not to discourse,

  But mount you presently, and meet with me

  Upon the rising of the mountain foot

  That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.

  Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.

  Exit

  THURIO

  Why, this it is to be a peevish girl,

  That flies her fortune when it follows her.

  I’ll after, more to be revenged on Eglamour

  Than for the love of reckless Silvia.

  [exit]

  PROTEUS

  And I will follow, more for Silvia’s love

  Than hate of Eglamour that goes with her.

  [Exit]

  JULIA

  And I will follow, more to cross that love

  Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.

  [Exit]

  5.3 Enter the Outlaws with Silvia captive

  FIRST OUTLAW

  Come, come, be patient. We must bring you to our captain.

  SILVIA

  A thousand more mischances than this one

  Have learned me how to brook this patiently.

  SECOND OUTLAW Come, bring her away.

  FIRST OUTLAW

  Where is the gentleman that was with her?

  THIRD OUTLAW

  Being nimble-footed he hath outrun us;

  But Moses and Valerius follow him.

  Go thou with her to the west end of the wood.

  There is our captain. We’ll follow him that’s fled.

  The thicket is beset, he cannot scape.

  Exeunt the Second and Third Outlaws

  FIRST OUTLAW (to Silvia)

  Come, I must bring you to our captain’s cave.

  Fear not. He bears an honourable mind,

  And will not use a woman lawlessly.

  SILVIA (aside)

  O Valentine! This I endure for thee.

  Exeunt

  5.4 Enter Valentine

  VALENTINE

  How use doth breed a habit in a man!

  This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods

  I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.

  Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,

  And to the nightingale’s complaining notes

  Tune my distresses and record my woes.

  O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,

  Leave not the mansion so long tenantless

  Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall

  And leave no memory of what it was.

  Repair me with thy presence, Silvia.

  Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.

  What hallooing and what stir is this today?

  These are my mates, that make their wills their law,

  Have some unhappy passenger in chase.

  They love me well, yet I have much to do

  To keep them from uncivil outrages.

  Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who’s this comes here?

  He stands aside.

  Enter Proteus, Silvia, and Julia dressed as a pageboy

  PROTEUS

  Madam, this service I have done for you—

  Though you respect not aught your servant doth—

  To hazard life, and rescue you from him

  That would have forced your honour and your love.

  Vouchsafe me for my meed but one fair look.

  A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,

  And less than this I am sure you cannot give.

  VALENTINE (aside)

  How like a dream is this I see and hear!

  Love lend me patience to forbear awhile.

  SILVIA

  O miserable, unhappy that I am!

  PROTEUS

  Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came.

  But by my coming I have made you happy.

  SILVIA

  By thy approach thou mak’st me most unhappy.

  JULIA (aside)

  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.

  SILVIA

  Had I been seized by a hungry lion

  I would have been a breakfast to the beast

  Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.

  O heaven be judge how I love Valentine,

  Whose life’s as tender to me as my soul.

  And full as much, for more there cannot be,

  I do detest false perjured Proteus.

  Therefore be gone, solicit me no more.

  PROTEUS

  What dangerous action, stood it next to death,

  Would I not undergo for one calm look!

  O, ’tis the curse in love, and still approved,

  When women cannot love where they’re beloved.

  SILVIA

  When Proteus cannot love where he’s beloved.

  Read over Julia’s heart, thy first, best love,

  For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith

  Into a thousand oaths, and all those oaths

  Descended into perjury to love me.

  Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou’dst two,

  And that’s far worse than none. Better have none

  Than plural faith, which is too much by one,

  Thou counterfeit to thy true friend.

  PROTEUS

  In love

  Who respects friend?

  SILVIA All men but Proteus.

  PROTEUS

  Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words

  Can no way change you to a milder form

  I’ll woo you like a soldier, at arm’s end,

  And love you ’gainst the nature of love: force ye.

  SILVIA

  O heaven!
r />   PROTEUS (assailing her) I’ll force thee yield to my desire.

  VALENTINE (coming forward)

  Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil touch,

  Thou friend of an ill fashion.

  PROTEUS Valentine!

  VALENTINE

  Thou common friend, that’s without faith or love,

  For such is a friend now. Treacherous man,

  Thou hast beguiled my hopes. Naught but mine eye

  Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say

  I have one friend alive. Thou wouldst disprove me.

  Who should be trusted, when one’s right hand

  Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,

  I am sorry I must never trust thee more,

  But count the world a stranger for thy sake.

  The private wound is deepest. O time most accursed,

  ’Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!

  PROTEUS My shame and guilt confounds me.

  Forgive me, Valentine. If hearty sorrow

  Be a sufficient ransom for offence,

  I tender’t here. I do as truly suffer

  As e’er I did commit.

  VALENTINE Then I am paid,

  And once again I do receive thee honest.

  Who by repentance is not satisfied

  Is nor of heaven nor earth. For these are pleased;

  By penitence th’ Eternal’s wrath’s appeased.

  And that my love may appear plain and free,

  All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.

  JULIA

  O me unhappy!

  She faints

  PROTEUS

  Look to the boy.

  VALENTINE Why, boy!

  Why wag, how now? What’s the matter? Look up. Speak.

  JULIA O good sir, my master charged me to deliver a ring to Madam Silvia, which out of my neglect was never done.

  PROTEUS Where is that ring, boy?

  JULIA Here ’tis. This is it.

  She gives Proteus the ring

  PROTEUS How, let me see!

  Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.

  JULIA

  O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook.

  She offers Proteus another ring

  This is the ring you sent to Silvia.

  PROTEUS

  But how cam’st thou by this ring? At my depart

  I gave this unto Julia.

  JULIA

  And Julia herself did give it me,

  And Julia herself hath brought it hither.

  PROTEUS How? Julia?

  JULIA

  Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths

  And entertained ’em deeply in her heart.

  How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root?

  O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush.

  Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me

  Such an immodest raiment, if shame live

  In a disguise of love.

  It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,

  Women to change their shapes than men their minds.

  PROTEUS

  Than men their minds! ‘Tis true. O heaven, were man

  But constant, he were perfect. That one error

  Fills him with faults, makes him run through all th’

  sins;

  Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.

  What is in Silvia’s face but I may spy

  More fresh in Julia’s, with a constant eye?

  VALENTINE Come, come, a hand from either.

  Let me be blessed to make this happy close.

  ’Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.

  Julia and Proteus join hands

  PROTEUS

  Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.

  JULIA

  And I mine.

  Enter the Outlaws with the Duke and Thurio as captives

  OUTLAWS

  A prize, a prize, a prize!

  VALENTINE

  Forbear, forbear, I say. It is my lord the Duke.

  The Outlaws release the Duke and Thurio

  (To the Duke) Your grace is welcome to a man

  disgraced,

  Banished Valentine.

  DUKE Sir Valentine!

  THURIO

  Yonder is Silvia, and Silvia’s mine.

  VALENTINE

  Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death.

  Come not within the measure of my wrath.

  Do not name Silvia thine. If once again,

  Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands.

  Take but possession of her with a touch—

  I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.

  THURIO

  Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I.

  I hold him but a fool that will endanger

  His body for a girl that loves him not.

  I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.

  DUKE

  The more degenerate and base art thou

  To make such means for her as thou hast done,

  And leave her on such slight conditions.

  Now by the honour of my ancestry

  I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,

  And think thee worthy of an empress’ love.

  Know then I here forget all former griefs,

  Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,

  Plead a new state in thy unrivalled merit,

  To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,

  Thou art a gentleman, and well derived.

  Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserved her.

  VALENTINE

  I thank your grace. The gift hath made me happy.

  I now beseech you, for your daughter’s sake,

  To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.

  DUKE

  I grant it, for thine own, whate’er it be.

  VALENTINE

  These banished men that I have kept withal

  Are men endowed with worthy qualities.

  Forgive them what they have committed here,

  And let them be recalled from their exile.

  They are reformed, civil, full of good,

  And fit for great employment, worthy lord.

  DUKE

  Thou hast prevailed. I pardon them and thee.

  Dispose of them as thou know’st their deserts.

  Come, let us go. We will include all jars

  With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.

  VALENTINE

  And as we walk along I dare be bold

  With our discourse to make your grace to smile.

  What think you of this page, my lord?

  DUKE

  I think the boy hath grace in him. He blushes.

  VALENTINE

  I warrant you, my lord, more grace than boy.

  DUKE What mean you by that saying?

  VALENTINE

  Please you, I’ll tell you as we pass along,

  That you will wonder what hath fortunèd.

  Come, Proteus, ’tis your penance but to hear

  The story of your loves discovered.

  That done, our day of marriage shall be yours,

  One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.

  Exeunt

  THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

  The Taming of the Shrew was first published in the 1623 Folio, but a related play, shorter and simpler, with the title The Taming of a Shrew, had appeared in print in 1594. The exact relationship of these plays is disputed. A Shrew has sometimes been regarded as the source for The Shrew; some scholars have believed that both plays derive independently from an earlier play, now lost; it has even been suggested that Shakespeare wrote both plays. In our view Shakespeare’s play was written first, not necessarily on the foundation of an earlier play, and A Shrew is an anonymous imitation, written in the hope of capitalizing on the success of Shakespeare’s play. The difference between the titles is probably no more significant than the fact that The Winter’s Tale is even now often loosely referred to as A Winter’s
Tale, or The Comedy of Errors as A Comedy of Errors.

  The plot of The Taming of the Shrew has three main strands. First comes the Induction showing how a drunken tinker, Christopher Sly, is made to believe himself a lord for whose entertainment a play is to be presented. This resembles an episode in The Arabian Nights, in which Caliph Haroun al Raschid plays a similar trick on Abu Hassan. A Latin version of this story was known in Shakespeare’s England; it may also have circulated by word of mouth. Second comes the principal plot of the play performed for Sly, in which the shrewish Katherine is wooed, won, and tamed by the fortune-hunting Petruccio. This is a popular narrative theme; Shakespeare may have known a ballad called ‘A merry jest of a shrewd and curst wife lapped in morel’s skin for her good behaviour’, printed around 1550. The third strand of the play involves Lucentio, Gremio, and Hortensio, all of them suitors for the hand of Katherine’s sister, Bianca. This is based on the first English prose comedy, George Gascoigne’s Supposes, translated from Ludovico Ariosto’s I Suppositi (1509), acted in 1566, and published in 1573. In The Taming of the Shrew as printed in the 1623 Folio Christopher Sly fades out after Act 1, Scene 1, in A Shrew he makes other appearances, and rounds off the play. These episodes may derive from a version of Shakespeare’s play different from that preserved in the Folio; we print them as Additional Passages.

  The adapting of Shakespeare’s play that seems to have occurred early in its career foreshadows its later history on the stage. Seven versions appeared during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, culminating in David Garrick’s Catharine and Petruchio, first performed in 1754. This version, omitting Christopher Sly and concentrating on the taming story, held the stage almost unchallenged until late in the nineteenth century. In various incarnations The Taming of the Shrew has always been popular on the stage, but its reputation as a robust comedy verging on farce has often obscured its more subtle and imaginative aspects, brutalizing Petruccio and trivializing Kate. The Induction, finely written, establishes a fundamentally serious concern with the powers of persuasion to change not merely appearance but reality, and this theme is acted out at different levels in both strands of the subsequent action.

  THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

  In the Induction

  CHRISTOPHER SLY, beggar and tinker

  A HOSTESS

  A LORD

  BARTHOLOMEW, his page

  HUNTSMEN

  SERVANTS

  PLAYERS

  In the play-within-the-play

  BAPTISTA Minola, a gentleman of Padua

  KATHERINE, his elder daughter

  BIANCA, his younger daughter