The Taming of the Shrew

Hortensio breaks terrible news to Tranio (disguised as Lucentio): Bianca is definitely fooling around with Lucentio (disguised as the Latin tutor). Tranio feigns astonishment, and Hortensio leads him to where he can see Bianca and Lucentio studying Ovid’s Art of Love, first literally and then figuratively; the pair don’t get far down the page before they’re canoodling in a corner.

Disgusted, Hortensio throws off his disguise (while Tranio pretends to be surprised) and vows to go away and marry a rich widow who’s been in love with him for years. He resolves, “Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks / Shall win my love” (4.2.41-42). Tranio cheerfully swears that he’ll never marry Bianca either. Hortensio storms off to marry his friendly widow.

Just then, Biondello arrives with news: He’s found an old merchant who can play the part of Lucentio’s father and provide the financial assurances Baptista demanded. Tranio tricks this merchant into believing his life’s at risk (since he’s a Mantuan, and the Paduans are at bitter war with Mantua). Tranio offers to do the merchant a “favor”: He’ll disguise the old man as his dad to keep him safe. The flustered merchant gratefully agrees.

Back at Petruchio’s house, Katherine is starving, exhausted, and frustrated. The servants are in on Petruchio’s plan to “tame” her now, too, and won’t bring her any food, saying it’s too choleric (or likely to inflame her angry, choleric temperament). At last, Petruchio brings her a dish himself, but he will only give it to her if she thanks him politely for it. Grudgingly, she does.

Petruchio continues his scheme at the haberdasher’s and tailor’s shops. Ostensibly there to buy Katherine a new hat and gown, he violently rejects everything the haberdasher and tailor present. When Katherine objects that she likes the clothes, crying, “Belike you mean to make a puppet of me” (in other words, make a fool of me), Petruchio willfully misinterprets her and turns the accusation on the tailor: “Why, true, he means to make a puppet of thee” (4.3.109-10). They depart without buying anything—but in an aside to Hortensio, who has accompanied them on their shopping trip, Petruchio makes sure to see that the tailors will be paid for their work. All his outrage is only part of his plan to “tame” Katherine.

A dejected Katherine and a cheerful Petruchio thus set out to Baptista’s house to celebrate Bianca’s wedding. Petruchio warns Katherine that he won’t allow her to attend unless she agrees with every single thing he says, no matter how absurd.

Meanwhile, in Padua, Tranio has coached the merchant who will be playing Lucentio’s father Vincentio. Upon meeting with Baptista, the three successfully agree to a marriage contract between the disguised Tranio and Bianca. Tranio sends the disguised Lucentio to inform Bianca of these plans, and Biondello catches up with Lucentio later to tell him that everything is in place for he and Bianca to elope.

Petruchio, Katherine, and company are en route to Padua for Bianca’s wedding. Petruchio puts Katherine to a final test. Looking up at the blazing sun, he wonders at how brightly the moon shines. Katherine corrects him—but he insists that, if she wants to keep traveling, she must agree with him that it’s the moon. Exasperated, Katherine relents and agrees that the sun is the moon. When Petruchio recants and says it’s the sun, Katherine readily agrees: “Then God be blest, it is the blessèd sun” (4.5.21). Now, she’s willing to promise to agree with him indefinitely.

Hortensio and the watching servants marvel that Petruchio has indeed “tamed” Katherine. Petruchio, for his part, feels that this is only Katherine returning to the natural course of things; this is the way she wants to behave, deep down, and all her earlier anger was just perversity for its own sake.

But he’s still going to test this new pliancy. As they continue traveling, they run into Vincentio, on his way to Padua to see how his son Lucentio is doing. Petruchio (who doesn’t know who Vincentio is) salutes him as a young and beautiful maiden, and asks Katherine to admire Vincentio’s loveliness—but then corrects her when she joins in, telling her that this is obviously an old man. At this stage in the proceedings, Katherine seems to be having fun, too: she describes her picture of Vincentio as a lovely young maiden in detail.

Once Katherine has apologized for her “mistake,” a mildly affronted Vincentio introduces himself to them, and Petruchio reveals Lucentio’s marriage to Bianca. Vincentio isn’t pleased that his son got married without his permission.

As the party travels on, Hortensio remarks that, if the rich widow he’s going to marry gives him any trouble, he knows what to do; he’ll just apply the Petruchio method.

When the traveling party of Petruchio, Katherine, Vincentio, and Hortensio arrives in town, everyone’s plots unravel at once. Seeking his son, Vincentio discovers the merchant impersonating him—and Tranio being called by Lucentio’s name. Vincentio thinks Tranio has murdered his son and taken his place, and Petruchio thinks that Vincentio is an impostor and threatens to have him arrested. But just as Vincentio is about to be dragged away to prison, Lucentio turns up with Bianca, having just been secretly married.

Lucentio apologetically says he’ll explain everything, and all the confused onlookers troop away to listen to this explanation. Petruchio and Katherine lag behind a little; Petruchio won’t budge until Katherine gives him a kiss. Katherine feels too modest to kiss Petruchio in the street. But when he threatens to head straight back home, she agrees—and even seems to feel some real affection for her madcap husband, saying, “Now pray thee, love, stay” (5.1.154).

The play ends with a cheerful wedding party. All the angry fathers have reconciled with their children, and three happy couples celebrate their weddings: Lucentio and Bianca, Katherine and Petruchio, and Hortensio and the rich widow he has indeed married, with whom Petruchio exchanges a few good-natured dirty jokes. In fact, much of this party involves joking at others’ expense: Tranio teases Petruchio for being a hunter whose “deer” (that is, Katherine) seems to have cornered him, and the married Bianca finally shows her pointed wit in public.

Baptista tells Petruchio that he certainly has married the “veriest shrew” of all the wives present, and Petruchio proposes that the guests perform a test to find out if that’s true. Each of the three newlywed husbands will call for his wife, and the quickest wife to respond will be the winner. Petruchio is so confident in Katherine that he proposes a 20-crown bet on the matter.

Lucentio kicks things off, sending the servant Biondello to fetch Bianca. But Bianca replies that she’s too busy to come see him at the moment. Hortensio’s new bride says the same—and even adds that she feels like Hortensio’s up to something, and that he can come to her if he wants her.

When Biondello goes to summon Katherine, he returns with her—despite of the other two husbands’ predictions to the contrary. A smug Petruchio asks Katherine what the other women are up to, and she tells him they’re busy chatting by the fire. Petruchio sends her to bring them back and gloats until they return.

Neither the widow nor Bianca is pleased to be hauled away from their chat, and when Lucentio tells Bianca he just lost a lot of money on her, she says he was a fool to bet. Petruchio tells Katherine to teach these headstrong wives their jobs.

At this, Katherine makes a long speech about wifely duty, advising all the women present that it’s only right that women should be affectionate, responsive, and obedient to their husbands. Because women naturally have weaker bodies, she says, it’s only fitting that they should take a subservient position to the husbands who protect them, treating them with gratitude and reverence. She declares, “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper” (5.2.162). She even offers to kneel in front of Petruchio and hold his foot as a token of respect; a delighted Petruchio offers a kiss instead.

With that, Petruchio and Katherine retire to their wedding bed, leaving the rest of the company behind to marvel at how thoroughly Katherine has been tamed.