There has been friction between husbands and wives for as long as there has been marriage, and there have been plays about marital strife as long as there have been plays. Since it’s usually men who write the plays, it’s natural that there has existed, at least since the days of classical playwrights Terence and Plautus, a body of satirical work involving the long-suffering husband attempting to deal with an insufferable wife. Our present play, one of Shakespeare’s relatively early comedies, is probably the greatest example of this theme.

Our discussion of The Taming of The Shrew is complicated by the existence of another, far inferior play, The Taming of A Shrew. The Shrew was not published until The First Folio came out in 1623, but record of A Shrew goes back to 1594. Either both plays were based on an earlier source, now lost, or someone tried to cash in on Shakespeare’s success by rushing out an unauthorized copy. The subplot, of the eager suitors to Bianca disguising themselves as servants, traces more easily to Gaiscoigne’s 1566 Supposes, itself an adaptation of I Suppositi by Ariosto (1509).     

Then there is the framing device of the drunken Christopher Sly, for whom the entire play is staged as part of an extended practical joke. The concept of a commoner who wakes up in a nobleman’s bed and is convinced that all his memories were merely a bad dream can be traced to the story of Abou Hassan from the Middle Eastern folktales known today as The Arabian Nights. Shakespeare’s use of the Sly character in The Taming of The Shrew is somewhat mysterious, since he disappears completely, along with the nobleman and that whole subplot, after the Induction and a brief reappearance in Act One. On the other hand, those characters appear intermittently throughout The Taming of A Shrew, even at the end of the play, when Sly wakes up as himself once again in the gutter, remembers the experience as a dream, and resolves not to be afraid of his domineering wife anymore, now that he knows “how to tame a shrew.” 

For some unfathomable reason, Shakespeare gave two characters the easily confusable names of Gremio and Grumio.

Note how Katherina bursts into tears when she thinks Petruchio has stood her up at the altar. Whether or not she truly loves Petruchio at this point, she has definitely been looking forward to getting married, and the thought of rejection, even by someone she considers a madman, fills her with shame. For my money, this is the single most poignant moment in all of the Shakespeare canon.

“…in a new hat and an old jerkin …”(Act 3 scene 2) The description of how Petruchio comes dressed to his own wedding is full of terms for items of clothing that were no doubt out of fashion even in Shakespeare’s day. It would take more space than I’m willing to allocate to completely explain what all of those words mean. Suffice it to say that he looks very strange indeed.

The techniques used by Petruchio to tame Kate are the same as those used by falconers to train new hawks: starvation, lack of sleep, etc. It’s been remarked in commentary on other plays, notably Romeo and Juliet, that Shakespeare’s knowledge of falconry certainly suggests more experience with this rich man’s sport than an Elizabethan actor could have been expected to have.

I don’t want to dwell on this point, but there’s another observation that can be made about behavior modification techniques such as starvation, lack of sleep, verbal abuse and physical violence: today, we would classify them as torture. Certainly in a marriage, they would constitute spousal abuse. Any actors presenting this play today walk a fine line in allowing Kate to give in to Petruchio while still maintaining her individuality and dignity.

Classical references:

• Cytherea – the goddess Venus
• dance barefoot – a fate reserved for unmarried women
• daughter of Agenor – Europa, who was abducted by the god Jupiter (Jove)
• Fair Leda’s daughter – Helen of Troy, considered the most beautiful woman in the world
• Grissel – actually Griselda, a model wife from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
• Hercules – legendary Greek hero forced to perform twelve miraculous feats of strength
• Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus; hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis – Here flowed the Simois River; here is the Sigeian land; here stood the lofty palace of old Priam. (Ovid)
• lead apes into hell – a fate reserved for unmarried women
• Lucrece – Roman woman who committed suicide after being raped; hence, a model of purity
• Redime te captum quam queas minimo – Ransom yourself as cheaply as possible (Terence)
• Sibyl – legendary old woman from Greek mythology
• Xantippe – the wife of Socrates, famous for her bad temper

Special vocabulary:

• affied – married
• bable – bauble, toy
• backare – pseudo-Latin gibberish, in this case meaning “back off”
• brach – hunting dog
• choleric – causing people to lose their temper
• cony-catch – trick, deceive
• cozen – cheat
• crossing – contradicting
• cullion – rascal, knave
• fardingale – petticoats
• fear – frighten
• froward – stubborn, peevish
• gamouth – gamut, meaning the musical scale
• gird – taunt, jest
• Gogs-wouns – God’s wounds; an extremely foul curse
• happily – as it happens, by chance
• Imprimis – (Latin) in the first place
• jade – unhealthy horse
• keep you warm – “you don’t have sense enough to keep yourself warm”
• kennel – gutter
• ‘longeth – belongs
• Marsellis road – the harbor of Marseilles
• (a) match – I agree (to your wager)
• mess – food
• milch-kine – dairy cattle
• neat – ox
• Our cake is dough – We’ve failed.
• peereth – appears
• pheeze – get even with?/ get revenge on?
• pittance – scant meal
• scapes – escapes
• scrivener – notary
• swinge – whip, beat
• tall – clever
• toward – obedient
• turtle – turtledove
• will you nill you – whether you want to or not

INDUCTION (Prologue)

Scene 1

Sly, a ne’er-do-well drunkard, is sleeping outside a tavern. An unnamed Lord, to play a joke on him, takes him into his house, instructing his staff to treat Sly as if he had always been a rich man, and even orders a male servant to pretend to be Sly’s wife.

Scene 2

When he wakes up, the servants do as instructed, and Sly becomes convinced that he had just woken up from a long illness, in which he dreamed that he was Christopher Sly. The real Lord orders a play to be performed for his entertainment, and the actors begin performing The Taming of The Shrew.

ACT 1

Scene 1

Lucentio has been sent by his father in Pisa to get an education in Padua, but as soon as he sees Bianca he falls in love with her and resolves to win her. He orders his trusty servant Tranio to take his place while he assumes a false identity as a schoolteacher to get closer to Bianca.

However, Bianca can not get married until her older sister Kate has a husband, and no one is willing to marry her, even for the large dowry her father Baptista promises, because she is famous for her bad temper and violent ways. Two other suitors for Bianca’s hand, Gremio and Hortensio, form an alliance to find someone to marry Kate.

Meanwhile, Sly is already growing bored with the play. Following a brief exchange of lines, he disappears permanently from the script.

Scene 2

Petruchio, recently arrived from Verona, pays a visit to his friend Hortensio. Hearing that Petruchio is looking for a wealthy wife, Hortensio points him to Kate, thus solving both of their problems.

Lucentio has presented himself to Gremio as a schoolteacher, to be introduced to Baptista.

ACT 2

Scene 1

All the suitors present themselves to Baptista, including Lucentio pretending to be a scholar named Cambio, and Tranio pretending to be Lucentio. Unknown to all except Petruchio, Hortensio is playing the same trick, pretending to be a music teacher named Litio so he can get close to Bianca too. This backfires when Kate breaks his lute over his head.

Petruchio now courts Kate, treating her insults as if they were compliments, and shrugging off all her attacks. Within minutes, he has overwhelmed her, and tells Baptista to set the wedding day.

With Kate out of the way, the other suitors press Baptista to decide between them for Bianca’s hand. Speaking on Lucentio’s behalf, Tranio negotiates the better deal, and Baptista promises her to him..

ACT 3

Scene 1

Speaking in the guise of tutors, Lucentio vies with Hortensio for Bianca’s love, but she is coy with both of them.

Scene 2

Petruchio arrives hours late for his wedding, and dressed outrageously. Embarrassing everybody, especially Kate, he goes through with the ceremony, and then immediately whisks her away for their honeymoon.

Tranio plots with Lucentio to find an old man to pretend to be Lucentio’s father, to verify the wealth that he promised Baptista, so that Lucentio can marry Bianca. 

ACT 4

Scene 1

Petruchio keeps Kate cold, hungry and awake — gradually sapping her will and energy to resist him.

Scene 2

Seeing Bianca kissing Lucentio, Hortensio stops loving her and decides to marry a rich widow instead. Tranio tricks an old man into pretending to be Lucentio’s father.

Scene 3

Petruchio teases Kate with food, then refuses to give it to her, saying that it’s not good enough for her. In the same way he offers to buy her a beautiful dress, but treats it as if it was ugly and dismisses the tailor.

Scene 4

The old man, utterly convincing as Lucentio’s father, persuades Baptista to marry Bianca to Lucentio.

Scene 5

On the road to Padua, Petruchio argues with Kate that the sun is the moon, and day is night. She is now so tired that she agrees with him, and at his urging even refers to an old man as a young girl. The old man turns out to be Vincentio, the real father of Lucentio, going to Padua to pay him a surprise visit. 

ACT 5

Scene 1

Lucentio secretly marries Bianca, while Tranio and the old man keep up the pretense of being Lucentio and his father. Meanwhile Vincentio arrives with Petruchio and Kate, but no one believes that he is the true father of Lucentio, especially when Tranio continues the masquerade for Lucentio‘s sake. Fortunately Lucentio arrives from the church just in time to keep Vincentio from going to jail, and  they all go in to a wedding feast.

Scene 2

Kate, now completely in the thrall of Petruchio, astonishes everyone in the party by obeying his every wish, even as Bianca and Hortensio’s new wives defy their loving husbands. She lectures them that their duty is to be servants to their husbands, and Petruchio brags that he has married better than the others.

ALTERNATIVE ENDING

The rival play The Taming of A Shrew (1594) resolves the framing device of the drunken Christopher Sly, which disappears completely from Shakespeare’s version. Here is the final scene of The Taming of A Shrew, when Sly wakes up as himself once again in the gutter, and thinks the experience was merely a dream, .

Sly sleeps.

Lord. Who’s within there? Come hither ye sirs, my lord’s
Asleep again: go, take him easily up,
And put him in his own apparel again,
And lay him in the place where we did find him,
Just underneath the alehouse side below:
But see you wake him not in any case.

Boy. It shall be done, my lord. Come, help to bear him hence.
[Exeunt with Sty.]

[EPILOGUE]

Then enter two bearing of Sly in his own apparel again, and leave him where they found him, and then go out.
Then enter the Tapster.

Tapster. Now that the darksome night is overpassed,
And dawning day appears in crystal sky,
Now must I haste abroad. But soft, who’s this?
What, Sly? oh wondrous, hath he lain here all night?
I’ll wake him; I think he’s starved by this,
But that his belly was so stuffed with ale.
What, how, Sly! Awake for shame !

Sly. Gi’s some more wine! What’s all the players gone?
Am not I a lord?

Tapster. A lord, with a murrain! Come, art thou drunken still?

Sly. Who ‘s this? Tapster? Oh, lord, sirrah, I have had
The bravest dream to-night, that ever thou
Heardest in all thy life!

Tapster. Ay, marry, but you had best get you home,
For your wife will curse you for dreaming here to-night.

Sly. Will she? I know now how to tame a shrew!
I dreamt upon it all this night till now,
And thou hast waked me out of the best dream
That ever I had in my life.
But I’ll to my wife presently
And tame her too, an if she anger me.

Tapster. Nay, tarry, Sly, for I’ll go home with thee,
And hear the rest that thou hast dreamt to-night.

[Exeunt Omnes.]