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Re-enter BIONDELLO

How now! what news?

BIONDELLO.

Sir, my mistress sends you word

That she is busy and she cannot come.

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

LUCENTIO.

Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIO.

And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCHIO.

Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,

An awful rule, and right supremacy;

And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.

BAPTISTA.

Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!

The wager thou hast won; and I will ad

Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;

Another dowry to another daughter,

For she is chang'd, as she had never been.

PETRUCHIO.

Nay, I will win my wager better yet,

And show more sign of her obedience,

Her new-built virtue and obedience.

Re-enter KATHERINA with BIANCA and WIDOW

See where she comes, and brings your froward wives

As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.

Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:

Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.

[KATHERINA complies]

WIDOW.

Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh

Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

BIANCA.

Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO.

I would your duty were as foolish too;

The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,

Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!

BIANCA.

The more fool you for laying on my duty.

PETRUCHIO.

Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

WIDOW.

Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling.

PETRUCHIO.

Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

WIDOW.

She shall not.

PETRUCHIO.

I say she shall. And first begin with her.

KATHERINA.

Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,

And dart not scornful glances from those eyes

To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.

It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,

Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,

And in no sense is meet or amiable.

A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled-

Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;

And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty

Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,

And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful labour both by sea and land,

To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,

Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

But love, fair looks, and true obedience-

Too little payment for so great a debt.

Such duty as the subject owes the prince,

Even such a woman oweth to her husband;

And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,

And not obedient to his honest will,

What is she but a foul contending rebel

And graceless traitor to her loving