SCENE I I. The fame. Before Hortenfio's Houfe. Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO. PET. Verona, for a while I take my leave, To fee my friends in Padua; but, of all, My best beloved and approved friend, Hortenfio; and, I trow, this is his houfe:Here, firrah Grumio; knock, I say. GRU. Knock, fir! whom fhould I knock? is there any man has rebus'd your worship? PET. Villain, I fay knock me here foundly. GRU. Knock you here,' fir? why, fir, what am I, fir, that I fhould knock you here, fir? PET. Villain, I fay, knock me at this gate, And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate. GRU. My mafter is grown quarrelfome: I thould knock you firft, And then I know after who comes by the worst. PET. Will it not be? 'Faith, firrah, an you'll not knock, I'll wring it; I'll try how you can fol, fa, and fing it. [He wrings GRUMIO by the ears. has rebus'd your worship? or is it a falfe print for abus'd? What is the meaning of rebus'd? 7 Knock you here,] Grumio's pretenfions to wit have a frong refemblance to thofe of Dromio in The Comedy of Errors; and this circumftance makes it the more probable that thefe two plays were written at no great distance of time from each other. 8 MALONE. -wring it;] Here feems to be a quibble between ringing at a door, and wringing a man's cars. STEEVENS. 9 GRU. Help, mafters, help! my master is mad. PET. Now knock when I bid you: firrah! vil lain ! Enter HORTENSIO. HOR. How now? what's the matter?-My old friend Grumio! and my good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona? PET. Signior Hortenfio, come you to part the fray? Con tutto il core bene trovato, may I fay. Molto honorato fignor mio Petruchio. Rife, Grumio, rife; we will compound this quarrel. GRU. Nay, 'tis no matter, what he 'leges in Latin.—If this be not a lawful cause for me to 9 Help, mafters,] The old copy reads here; and in feveral other places in this play mistress, instead of mafters. Corre&ed by Mr. Theobald. In the Mis. of our author's age M was the common abbreviation of Mafter and Miftrefs. Hence the miftake. See The Merchant of Venice, A& V. 1600, and 1623: "What ho, M. [Mafter] Lorenzo, and M. [Miftress] Lorenzo. 2 MALONE. what he 'leges in Latin. i. c. I fuppofe, what he alleges In Latin. Petruchio has been juft fpeaking Italian to Hortenfio, which Grumio miftakes for the other language. STEEVENS. I cannot help fufpecting that we fhould read-Nay, 'tis no matter what be leges in Latin, if this be not a lawful caufe for me to leave his fervice. Look you, fir. That is, ""Tis no matter what is law, if this be not a lawful caufe," &c. TYRWHITT. Tyrwhitt's amendment and explanation of this paffage is evidently right. Mr. Steevens appears to have been a little abfent when he wrote his note on it.' He forgot that Italian was Grumio's native language, and that therefore he could not poffibly mistake it for Latin. M. MASON. I am grateful to M. M. Mafon for his hint, which may prove beneficial to me on fome future occafion, though, at the prefent leave his fervice,-Look you, fir,he bid me knock him, and rap him foundly, fir: Well, was it fit for a fervant to use his mafler fo; being, perhaps, (for aught I fee,) two and thirty,-a pip out? Whom, 'would to God, I had well knock'd at first, Then had not Grumio come by the worst. 3 PET. A fenfelefs villain!- Good Hortenfio, Spake you not thefe words plain,-Sirrah, knock me here, Rap me here, knock me well, and knock me foundly? 4 And come you now with-knocking at the gate? PET. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you. HOR. Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge: Why, this is a heavy chance 'twixt him and you; Your ancient, trufty, pleafant fervant Grumio. moment it will not operate fo forcibly as to change my opinion. I was well aware that Italian was Grumio's native language, but was not, nor am now, certain of our author's attention to this circumftance, because his Italians neceffarily fpeak English throughout the play, with the exception of a few colloquial fentences. So little regard does our author pay to petty proprieties, that as often as Signior, the Italian appellation, does not occur to him, or fuit the meafure of his verfe, he gives us in its room, Sir Vincentio," and "Sir Lucentio." STEEVENS. 3 ——a pip out?] The old copy has-peepe. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 4 knock me foundly?] Shakspeare feems to defign a ridi. cule on this clipped and ungrammatical phrascology; which yet he has introduced in Othello: "I pray talk me of Caffio." It occurs again, and more improperly, in heroic translation: . upon advantage spide, Did wound me Molphey on the leg, &c. Arthur Golding's Ovid, B. V. p. 66. b. STEEVENS. And tell me now, fweet friend,-what happy gale To feek their fortunes further than at home, 5 And I have thruft myfelf into this maze, HQR. Petruchio, fhall I then come roundly to thee, And with thee to a fhrewd ill-favour'd wife? And PET. Signior Hortenfio, 'twixt fuch friends as we, Few words fuffice: and, therefore, if thou know 5 Where Small experience grows. But, in a few,] In a few, means the fame as in short, in few words. JOHNSON. So, in K. Henry IV. Part II: 6 In few; - his death, whofe fpirit lent a fire," &c. STEEVENS. (As wealth is burthen of my wooing dance,)] The burthen of a dance is an expreffion which I have never heard; the burthen of his wooing fong had been more proper. JOHNSON. 7 Be fie as foul as was Florentius' love,] I fuppofe this alludes to the story of a Florentine, which is met with in the eleventh Book of Thomas Lupton's Thousand Notable Things, and perhaps in other Colle&ions. As, old as Sibyl, and as curft and fhrewd She moves me not, or not removes, at least, 39. A Florentine young gentleman was fo deceived by the luftre and orientnefs of her jewels, pearls, rings, lawns, fcarfes, laces, gold fpangles, and other gaudy devices, that he was ravished overnight, and was mad till the marriage was folemnized. But next morning by light viewing of her before she was so gorgeously trim'd up, fhe was fuch a leane, yellow, riveled, deformed creature, that he never lay with her, nor lived with her afterwards; and would fay that he had married himself to a flinking house of office, painted over, and fet out with fine garments: and fo for grief confumed away in melancholy, and at last poysoned himself. Gomefius, lib. 3. de Sal. Gen. cap. 22. FARMER. The allufion is to a flory told by Gower in the first book De Confeffione Amantis. Florent is the name of a knight who had bound himself to marry a deformed hag, provided she taught him the folution of a riddle on which his life depended. The following is the defcription of her: "Florent his wofull heed up lifte, "And faw this vecke, where that the fit, That ever man cafte on his eye: "Hir nose baas, hir browes hie, Hir lippes fhronken ben for age, Hir necke is fhorte, hir fhulders courbe, She hath no lith without a lacke, "But like unto the woll facke:" &c Though he be the foulefte of all," &c. This flory might have been borrowed by Gower from an older narrative in the Gefta Romanorum. See the Introdu&tory Difcourfe to The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition, Vol. IV. P. 153. STEEVENS. |