Kath, & Why, fir, I truft, I may have leave to

fpeak;

And fpeak I will; I am no child, no babe:
Your betters have endur'd me fay my mind;
And, if you cannot, beft you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart;
Or elfe my heart, concealing it, will break :
And, rather than it fhall, I will be free
Even to the uttermoft, as I please, in words.

Pet. Why, thou fay'ft true; it is a paltry cap,
A cuftard-coffin', a bauble, a filken pye:
I love thee well, in that thou lik'st it not.

Kath. Love me, or love me not, I like the cap; And it I will have, or I will have none.

Pet. Thy gown? why, ay :-Come, taylor, let us fee't.

O mercy, God? what masking stuff is here? What's this? a fleeve? 'tis like a demi-cannon: What! up and down, carv'd like an apple-tart? Here's fnip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and flash, Like to a cenfer in a barber's fhop :

I

Why

8 Why fir, I truft, I may have leave to speak, &c.] Shakspeare has here copied nature with great skill. Petruchio, by frightening, ftarving, and overwatching his wife, had tamed her into gentleness and fubmiflion. And the audience expects to hear no more of the fhrew: when on her being croffed, in the article of fashion and finery, the most inveterate folly of the fex, the flies out again, though for the last time, into all the intemperate rage of her nature. WARBURTON.

9 A custard-coffin,-] A coffin was the ancient culinary term for the raised cruft of a pye or custard. So, in Ben Jonson's Staple of News:

C6

if you spend

"The red-deer pies in your houfe, or fell them forth, fir,
Caft fo, that I may have their coffins all
"Return'd, &c."

Again, in Ben Jonfon's Mafque of Gypfies Metamorphofed: "And coffin'd in cruft 'till now he was hoary." STEEVENS. 1 Cenfer] Cenfers in barber's fhops are now difufed, but they may

Why, what, o'devil's name, taylor, call'ft thou this? Hor. I fee, fhe's like to have neither cap nor gown.

[Afide.

Tay. You bid me make it orderly and well, According to the fashion, and the time,

Pet. Marry, and did; but if you be remembred, I did not bid you mar it to the time, Go, hop me over every kennel home, For you shall hop without my custom, fir: I'll none of it; hence, make your beft of it.

Kath. I never faw a better-fafhion'd gown, More quaint, more pleafing, nor more commendable: Belike, you mean to make a puppet of me.

Pet. Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.

Tay. She fays, your worship means to make a puppet of her.

Pet. Oh monftrous arrogance !

Thou lyeft, thou thread, thou thimble,
Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter cricket thou :-
Brav'd in mine own houfe with a fkein of thread!
Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant ;
Or I fhall fo be-mete thee with thy ard,
As thou fhalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!
I tell thee, I, that thou haft marr'd her gown.

Tay. Your worship is deceiv'd; the gown is made
Just as my mafter had direction :
Grumio gave order how it fhould be done.

Gru. I gave him no order, I gave him the ftuff.
Tay. But how did you defire it should be made?

eafily be imagined to have been veffels which, for the emiffion of the fmoke, were cut with great number and varieties of interstices. JOHNSON. 2 thou thimble,] The taylor's trade having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, liable to farcafms and contempt. JOHNSON.

3

be-mete] i. e. be-meafure thee. STEEVENS.

Gru.

Gru. Marry, fir, with needle and thread.
Tay. But did you not request to have it cut?
Gru. Thou haft fac'd many things.
Tay. I have.

Gru. Face not me: thou haft brav'd many men'; brave not me; I will neither be fac'd nor brav'd. I fay unto thee,-I bid thy mafter cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou

lieft.

Tay. Why, here is the note of the fashion to tef tify.

Pet. Read it.

Gru. The note lies in his throat, if he fay I said so. Tay. Imprimis, a loafe-bodied gown:

Gru. Mafter, if ever I faid loofe-body'd gown, fow me up in the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread; I faid, a gown,

Pet. Proceed.

Tay. With a fmall compass'd cape";
Gru. I confefs the cape,

4 faced many things.] i. e. turned up many gowns, &c. with facings, &c. So, in Hen. IV:

"To face the garment of rebellion

"With fome fine colour."

STEEVENS.

brav'd many men ;] i. e. made many men fine. Brawas the ancient term for elegance of drefs. STEEVENS.

gosun,

I

joke is impair'd, unless we read with the original play already quoted-a loofe body's gown, It appears, however, that loose-bodied gowns were the dress of barlots. Thus, in the Michaelmas Term by Middleton, 1607; Doft dream of viginity now? remember a lonfc-bodied gown, wench, and let it go." STEEVENS.

See Dodley's Old Plays, vol. iii. p. 479. edit. 1780.

5

EDITOR.

7-a fmall compafs'd cape;] Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, 1565, gives a moft elaborate defcription of the gowns of women; and adds "Some have capes reaching down to the midst of their . backs, faced with velvet, or elfe with fome fine wrought taffata, at the leaft, fringed about, very bravely." STELVENS.

A compass'd cape is a round cape. To compass is to come round, JOHNSON. Tay.

Tay. With a trunk fleeve ;Gru. I confefs two fleeves. Tay. The fleeves curiously cut. Pet. Ay, there's the villainy. Gru. Error i'the bill, fir; error i'the bill. I commanded the fleeves fhould be cut out, and fow'd up again; and that I'll prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

Tay. This is true, that I fay; an I had thee in place where, thou fhou'dft know it.

Gru. I am for thee ftraight: take thou the bill, give me thy mete-yard, and fpare not me.

Hor. God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he fhall have no odds.

Pet. Well, fir, in brief, the gown is not for me. Gru. You are i'the right, fir; 'tis for my miftrefs. Pet, Go, take it up unto thy master's use.

Gru. Villain, not for thy life: Take up my miftrefs' gown for thy mafter's ufe!

Pet. Why, fir, what's your conceit in that? Gru. Oh, fir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:

Take up my miftrefs's gown unto his mafter's ufe! Oh, fye, fye, fye!

--

Pet. Hortenfio, fay thou wilt see the taylor paid :Go take it hence; be gone, and fay no more. [Afide Hor. Taylor, I'll pay thee for thy gown to-mor

row.

Take no unkindness of his hafty words:
Away, I fay; commend me to thy mafter.

[Exit Taylor.

8 take thou the bill.] The fame quibble between the written bill, and bill the ancient weapon carried by foot-foldiers, is to be met with in Timon. STEEVENS.

9thy mete-yard,] i. e. thy meafuring-yard. So, in the Miferics of Infore'd Marriage, 1607:

"Be not a bar between us, or my fword
"Shall mete thy grave out." STEEVENS.

Pet.

Pet. Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your
father's,

Even in these honest mean habiliments;
Our purfes fhall be proud, our garments poor:
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the fun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted fkin contents the eye?
Oh, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worfe
For this poor furniture, and mean array.
If thou account'ft it fhame, lay it on me :
And therefore, frolick; we will hence forthwith,
To feast and sport us at thy father's houfe.-
Go, call my men, and let us ftraight to him;
And bring our horfes unto Long-lane end,
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.-
Let's fee; I think, 'tis now fome feven o'clock,
And well we may come there by dinner time.

Kath. I dare affure you, fir, 'tis almost two;
And 'twill be fupper time, ere you come there.
Pet. It fhall be feven, ere I go to horse:
Look, what I fpeak, or do, or think to do,
You are still croffing it.-Sirs, let't alone:
I will not go to-day; and ere I do,
It fhall be what o'clock I fay it is.

-

Hor. Why, fo! this gallant will command the fun. [Exeunt Petruchio, Katharine, and Hortenfio'.

After this exeunt, the characters before whom the play is fuppofed to be exhibited, have been hitherto introduced from the original fo often mentioned in the former notes.

"Lord. Who's within there?

"Enter Servants.

"Afleep again! go take him eafily up, and put him in his own apparel again. But fee you wake him not in any cafe."

"Serv. It shall be done, my lord; come help to bear him bence.

[They bear off Sly."

STEEVENS. SCENE