If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me:
And therefore, frolick; we will hence forthwith,
To feast and sport us at thy father's house.—
Go, call my men, and let us straight to him;
And bring our horses unto Long-lane end,
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.-
Let's see; I think, 'tis now some seven o'clock,
And well we may come there by dinner time.
KATH. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two;
And 'twill be supper time, ere you come there.
PET. It shall be seven, ere I
go to horse:
Look, what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it.-Sirs, let't alone:
I will not go to-day; and ere I do,

It shall be what o'clock I say it is.

HOR. Why so! this gallant will command the

sun.

[Exeunt.

9 Exeunt.] After this exeunt, the characters before whom the play is supposed to be exhibited, have been hitherto introduced. from the original so often mentioned in the former notes. "Lord. Who's within there?

"Enter Servants.

"Asleep again! go take him easily up, and put him in his own apparel again. But see you wake him not in any case.

"Serv. It shall be done, my lord; come help to bear him hence." [They bear off Sly. STEEVENS.

SCENE IV.1

Padua. Before Baptista's House.

Enter TRANIO, and the Pedant dressed like
VINCENTIO.

TRA. Sir, this is the house; Please it you, that I call?

PED. Ay, what else? and, but I be deceived,3 Signior Baptista may remember me,

Near twenty years ago, in Genoa, where
We were lodgers at the Pegasus.*

! I cannot but think that the direction about the Tinker, who is always introduced at the end of the Acts, together with the change of the scene, and the proportion of each Act to the rest, make it probable that the fifth Act begins here. JOHNSON.

* Sir, this is the house;] The old copy has--Sirs. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

3

but I be deceived,] But, in the present instance, signifies, without, unless. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "But being charg'd, we will be still by land."

STEEVENS.

We were lodgers at the Pegasus.] This line has in all the editions hitherto been given to Tranio. But Tranio could with no propriety speak this, either in his assumed or real character. Lucentio was too young to know any thing of lodging with his father, twenty years before at Genoa: and Tranio must be as much too young, or very unfit to represent and personate Lucentio. I have ventured to place the line to the Pedant, to whom it must certainly belong, and is a sequel of what he was before saying. THEOBALD.

Shakspeare has taken a sign out of London, and hung it up in Padua:

"Meet me an hour hence at the sign of the Pegasus in Cheapside." Return from Parnassus, 1606.

Again, in The Jealous Lovers, by Randolph, 1632:

TRA.

'Tis well;

And hold your own, in any case, with such
Austerity as 'longeth to a father.

Enter BIONdello.

PED. I warrant you: But, sir, here comes your boy;

'Twere good, he were school'd.

TRA. Fear you not him. Sirrah, Biondello, Now do your duty throughly, I advise you; Imagine 'twere the right Vincentio.

BION. Tut! fear not me.

TRA. But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista? BION. I told him, that your father was at Venice; And that you look'd for him this day in Padua. TRA. Thou'rt a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.

Here comes Baptista:-set your countenance, sir.

Enter BAPTISTA and LUCENTIO.5

Signior Baptista, you are happily met :-
Sir, [To the Pedant.]

This is the gentleman I told you of;

I

pray you, stand good father to me now, Give me Bianca for my patrimony.

PED. Soft, son!

"A pottle of elixir at the Pegasus,

ti

66 Bravely carous'd, is more restorative."

The Pegasus is the arms of the Middle-Temple; and, from that circumstance, became a popular sign. STEEVENS.

• Enter Baptista and Lucentio.] and (according to the old copy,) Pedant, booted and bareheaded.

VOL. IX.

RITSON.

M

Sir, by your leave; having come to Padua
To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio
Made me acquainted with a weighty cause
Of love between your daughter and himself:
And, for the good report I hear of you;
And for the love he beareth to your daughter,
And she to him,-to stay him not too long,
I am content, in a good father's care,

6

To have him match'd; and,-if you please to like
No worse than I, sir,-upon some agreement,
Me shall you find most ready and most willing
With one consent to have her so bestow'd;
For curious I cannot be with you,"
Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

BAP. Sir, pardon me in what I have to say;-
Your plainness, and your shortness, please me well.
Right true it is, your son Lucentio here
Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,
Or both dissemble deeply their affections:
And, therefore, if you say no more than this,
That like a father you will deal with him,
And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,
The match is fully made, and all is done:9

• Me shall you find most ready and most willing-] The repeated word most, is not in the old copy, but was supplied by Sir T. Hanmer, to complete the measure. STEEVENS.

7 For curious I cannot be with you,] Curious is scrupulous. So, in Holinshed, p. 888: "The emperor obeying more compassion than the reason of things, was not curious to condescend to performe so good an office." Again, p. 890: " and was

not curious to call him to eat with him at his table." STEEVENS.

And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,] To pass is, in this place, synonymous to assure or convey; as it sometimes occurs in the covenant of a purchase deed, that the granter has power to bargain, sell, &c. " and thereby to pass and convey" the premises to the grantee. RITSON.

The match is fully made, and all is done:] The word

Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

TRA. I thank you, sir. Where then do you

best,

1

We be affied; and such assurance ta'en,

As shall with either part's agreement stand?

know

BAP. Not in my house, Lucentio; for, you know, X Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants :

Besides, old Gremio is heark'ning still;
And, happily, we might be interrupted."

you,

sir:

TRA. Then at my lodging, an it like
There doth my father lie; and there, this night,
We'll pass the business privately and well:
Send for your daughter by your servant here,
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.
The worst is this,-that, at so slender warning,
You're like to have a thin and slender pittance.

BAP. It likes me well :-Cambio, hie you home,
And bid Bianca make her ready straight;

3

fully (to complete the verse) was inserted by Sir Thomas Hanmer, who might have justified his emendation by a foregoing passage in this comedy:

"Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made.”

STEEVENS.

'We be affied;] i. e. betrothed. So, in King Henry VI. P. II:

"For daring to affy a mighty lord

"Unto the daughter of a worthless king." STEEVENS. And, happily, we might be interrupted.] copy. Mr. Pope reads:

Thus the old

And haply then we might be interrupted. STEEVENS. Happily, in Shakspeare's time, signified accidentally, as well as fortunately. It is rather surprising, that an editor should be guilty of so gross a corruption of his author's language, for the sake of modernizing his orthography. TYRWHITT.

3

an it like you, sir:] The latter word, which is not in the old copy, was added by the editor of the second folio.

MALONE.