KATH. 'Pray you, let it stand. PET. The poorest service is repaid with thanks; And so shall mine, before you touch the meat. KATH. I thank you, sir. HOR. Signior Petruchio, fye! you are to blame! Much good do it unto thy gentle heart! With silken coats, and caps, and golden rings, sure, To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.2 1 - farthingales, and things;] Though things is a poor word, yet I have no better, and perhaps the author had not another that would rhyme. I once thought to transpose the word rings and things, but it would make little improvement. JOHNSON. However poor the word, the poet must be answerable for it, as he had used it before, Act II. sc. v. when the rhyme did not force it upon him: We will have rings and things, and fine array. “'Tis true that I am poor, and yet have things, A thing is a trifle too inconsiderable to deserve a particular discrimination. STEEVENS. - with his ruffling treasure,] This is the reading of the old copy, which Mr. Pope changed to rustling, I think, without necessity. Our author has indeed in another play—" Prouder Enter Tailor. Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments ;3 than rustling, in unpaid for silk;" but ruffling is sometimes used in nearly the same sense. Thus, in King Lear : 66 the high winds There clearly the idea of noise as well as turbulence is annexed to the word. A ruffler in our author's time signified a noisy and turbulent swaggerer; and the word ruffling may here be applied in a kindred sense to dress. So, in King Henry VI. P. II: "And his proud wife, high-minded Eleanor, "That ruffles it with such a troop of ladies, "As strangers in the court take her for queen." Again, more appositely, in Camden's Remaines, 1605: "There was a nobleman merry conceited and riotously given, having lately sold a manor of a hundred tenements, came ruffling into the court in a new sute, saying, Am not I a mightie man that beare an hundred houses on my backe." Boyle speaks of the ruffling of silk, and ruffled is used by so late an author as Addison in the sense of plaited; in which last signification perhaps the word ruffling should be understood here. Petruchio has just before told Katharine that she "should revel it with ruffs and cuffs;" from the former of which words, ruffled, in the sense of plaited, seems to be derived. As ruffling therefore may be understood either in this sense, or that first suggested, (which I incline to think the true one,) I have adhered to the reading of the old copy. To the examples already given in support of the reading of the old copy, may be added this very apposite one from Lyly's Euphues and his England, 1580: "Shall I ruffle in new devices, with chains, with bracelets, with rings, with roabes?" Again, in Drayton's Battaile of Agincourt, 1627: "With ruffling banners, that do brave the sky." MALONE. 3 Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;] In our poet's time, women's gowns were usually made by men. So, in the Epistle to the Ladies, prefixed to Euphues and his England, by John Lyly, 1580: "If a taylor make your gown too little, you cover his fault with a broad stomacher; if too great, with a number of pleights; if too short, with a fair guard; if too long, with a false gathering." MALONE. Enter Haberdasher.1 Lay forth the gown.-What news with you, sir? HAB. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak. • Enter Haberdasher.] Thus, in the original play : "San. Master, the haberdasher has brought my mistris home hir cap here. "Feran. Come hither, sirha: what have you there? "Haber. A velvet cap, sir, and it please you. "Feran. Who spoke for it? Didst thou, Kate? "Kate. What if I did? Come hither, sirha, give me the cap; ile see if it will fit me. [She sets it on her head. "Feran. O monstrous! why it becomes thee not. "Let me see it, Kate: here, sirha, take it hence; "This cap is out of fashion quite. “Kate. The fashion is good inough: belike you mean to make a fool of me. "Feran. Why true, he means to make a foole of thee, "To have thee put on such a curtald cap: "Sirha, begone with it. "Enter the Taylor, with a gowne. "San. Here is the Taylor too with my mistris gowne. "Feran. Let me see it, Taylor: What, with cuts and jags? "Sounes, thou vilaine, thou hast spoil'd the gowne. "Taylor. Why, sir, I made it as your man gave me direction; "You may read the note here. "Feran. Come hither, sirha: Taylor, read the note. "Taylor. Item, a faire round compass'd cape. "San. I, that's true. 66 Taylor. And a large truncke sleeve. "San. That's a lie maister; I said two truncke sleeves. "Feran. Well, sir, go forward. 66 Taylor. Item, a loose-bodied gowne. "San. Maister, if ever I said loose bodies gowne, "Sew me in a seame, and beat me to death "With a bottom of browne thred. "Taylor. I made it as the note bade me. "San. I say the note lies in his throate, and thou too, an thou sayest it. "Tay. Nay, nay, ne'er be so hot, sirha, for I feare you not. "San. Doost thou heare, Tailor? thou hast braved many men: 86 Brave not me. Th'ast fac'd many men. 66 Taylor. Wel, sir. PET. Why, this was moulded on a porringer;' A velvet dish;-fye, fye! 'tis lewd and filthy: Why, 'tis a cockle, or a walnutshell, A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap; 5 "San. Face not me: I'le neither be fac'd, nor braved, at thy hands, I can tell thee. "Kate. Come, come, I like the fashion of it well inough; "Heere's more adoe than needes; I'le have it, I; "And if you doe not like it, hide your eies: "I thinke I shall have nothing, by your will. "Feran. Go, I say, and take it up for your "San. Souns villaine, not for thy life; touch it not: "Souns, take up my mistris gowne to his maister's use! "Feran. Well, sir, what's your conceit of it? maister's use! "San. I have a deeper conceit in it than you think for. Take up my mistris gowne to his maister's use! "Feran. Taylor, come hither; for this time make it : "Hence againe, and Ile content thee for thy paines. "Taylor. I thanke you, sir. [Exit Tailer. "Feran. Come, Kate, wee now will go see thy father's house, "Even in these honest meane abiliments; "Our purses shall be rich, our garments plaine, "To shrowd our bodies from the winter rage; "And that's inough, what should we care for more? 66 Thy sisters, Kate, to-morrow must be wed, "And I have promised them thou should'st be there: "The morning is well up; let's haste away; "It will be nine a clocke ere we come there. "Kate. Nine a clocke! why 'tis already past two in the af ternoon, by al the clockes in the towne. "Feran. I say 'tis but nine a clocke in the morning. "Kate. I say 'tis two a clocke in the afternoone. "Feran. It shall be nine then ere you go to your fathers: "Come backe againe ; we will not go to day: "Nothing but crossing me stil? "Ile have you say as I doe, ere I goe. [Exeunt omnes." STEEVENS. on a porringer;] The same thought occurs in King Henry VIII: "-rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head." STEEVENS. KATH. I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time, And gentlewomen wear such caps as these. PET. When you are gentle, you shall have one too, And not till then. HOR. That will not be in haste. [Aside. KATH. Why, sir, I trust, I may have leave to speak; 6 And speak I will; I am no child, no babe: I love thee well, in that thou lik'st it not. 6 Why, sir, I trust, I may have leave to speak; &c.] Shakspeare has here copied nature with great skill. Petruchio, by frightening, starving, and overwatching his wife, had tamed her into gentleness and submission. And the audience expects to hear no more of the shrew: when on her being crossed, in the article of fashion and finery, the most inveterate folly of the sex, she flies out again, though for the last time, into all the intemperate rage of her nature. WARBURTON. 7 A custard-coffin,] A coffin was the ancient culinary term for the raised crust of a pie or custard. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News: if you spend "The red deer pies in your house, or sell them forth, sir, "Cast so, that I may have their coffins all "Return'd," &c. Again, in Ben Jonson's Masque of Gypsies Metamorphosed: "And coffin'd in crust 'till now she was hoary." Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, has a similar term for a woman's cap: 66 for all her velvet custard on her head." STEEVENS. |