Petruchio

“ LUCENTIO. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
HORTENSIO. And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.
PETRUCHIO. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.
BAPTISTA. Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is chang'd, as she had never been.
PETRUCHIO. Nay, I will win my wager better yet,
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience. ”

“ The most miserable animals that the imagination can conjure up, all the gaunt, ghostly steeds that graze in the pastures of legend and fable, were gathered there, neighing and pawing as impatiently as their half-starved spirits would allow. Be sure Petruchio bought his famous steed at the horse-fair of Padua, and that he tried the beast's speed, as these peasants do, by driving him round and round the statues, raising a cloud of white dust and scattering crowds of girls and children, who screamed with terror and prayed that the curse of Sant' Antonio might ever follow him. ”

“ The most striking and at the same time laughable feature in the character of Petruchio throughout, is the studied approximation to the intractable character of real madness, his apparent insensibility to all external considerations, and utter indifference to everything but the wild and extravagant freaks of his own self-will. There is no contending with a person on whom nothing makes any impression but his own purposes, and who is bent on his own whims just in proportion as they seem to want common-sense. With him a thing's being plain and reasonable is a reason against it. ”

“ PETRUCHIO. O Kate, content thee; prithee be not angry.
KATHERINA. I will be angry; what hast thou to do?
Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.
GREMIO. Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.
KATHERINA. Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.
I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist.
PETRUCHIO. They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command. ”

“ I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua. GRUMIO. Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is. Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she has as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal. HORTENSIO. Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in, I will continue that I broach'd in jest. I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife With wealth enough, and young and beauteous; Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman ”

“ Lucentio, Bianca's husband, and Hortensio, the other new married man, could not forbear sly jests, which seemed to hint at the shrewish disposition of Petruchio's wife, and these fond bridegrooms seemed highly pleased with the mild tempers of the ladies they had chosen, laughing at Petruchio for his less fortunate choice. ”

“ BIONDELLO. Who? that Petruchio came?
BAPTISTA. Ay, that Petruchio came.
BIONDELLO. No, sir; I say his horse comes with him on his back.
BAPTISTA. Why, that's all one.
BIONDELLO. Nay, by Saint Jamy,
I hold you a penny,
A horse and a man
Is more than one,
And yet not many.
Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO
PETRUCHIO. Come, where be these gallants? Who's at home?
BAPTISTA. You are welcome, sir.
PETRUCHIO. And yet I come not well.
BAPTISTA. And yet you halt not.
TRANIO. Not so well apparell'd
As I wish you were.
PETRUCHIO. Were it better, I should rush in thus.
But where is Kate? ”

“ God send you joy, Petruchio! ’tis a match.
Gremio. Tranio. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.
Petruchio. Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu;
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace.
We will have rings, and things, and fine array;
And, kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’ Sunday.”
Although Katharina is only his spouse, and Baptista not yet his father-in-law, Petruchio, in accordance with fashion, calls her “wife” and him “father.” The spouses of old times used to term one another “husband” and “wife,” for, as they argued, they were as good as husband and wife. ”

“ Blynn nodded. “He was drawn to Padua as I have seen a butterfly drawn unerringly to its mate across miles of country. Of course, Petruchio didn’t know what was sending him forth; any more than he knew why his diaphragm was pumping air into his lungs, or why invisible Neptune influences our tides, or why a green weed will suddenly spring into a gold and white daisy. Life is so crowded with intelligent mysterious design that it is difficult to believe that anything happens haphazard.” ”

“ Played rightly, however, Petruchio becomes not a brawler, not a kind of damn-my-eyes bully and braggart, but a practical idealist, a man who, happening by chance upon a creature of stupendous undirected power, sets himself to the direction of that power toward nature's, if not humanity's, ends. At the first he cares nothing for Katherine save that the rumor of her fire and spirit has pleased his wild fancy. ”

“ PEDANT.
O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever
The patron of my life and liberty.
TRANIO.
Then go with me to make the matter good.
This, by the way, I let you understand:
My father is here look’d for every day
To pass assurance of a dower in marriage
’Twixt me and one Baptista’s daughter here:
In all these circumstances I’ll instruct you.
Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. A room in Petruchio’s house. Enter Katherina and Grumio.
GRUMIO.
No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.
KATHERINA.
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears. ”

“ This was enough for Petruchio, and privately desiring these people might be paid for their goods, and excuses made to them for the seemingly strange treatment he bestowed upon them, he with fierce words and furious gestures drove the tailor and the haberdasher out of the room; and then, turning to Katharine, he said, "Well, [Pg 169] come, my Kate, we will go to your father's even in these mean garments we now wear." And then he ordered his horses, affirming they should reach Baptista's house by dinner-time, for that it was but seven o'clock. ”

“ In the Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio the male, who knows what he wants and wants his own ease and comfort, hits immediately upon the right line of conduct, a line that is, however, altogether spiritual, because based upon psychological knowledge and volitional resolve. ”

“ I am glad on't, and I will talk.
Petru. Prethee peace,
Let me not think thou art mad. I tell thee woman,
If thou goest forward, I am still Petruchio.
Mar. And I am worse, a woman that can fear
Neither Petruchio Furius, nor his fame,
Nor any thing that tends to our allegeance;
There's a short method for you, now you know me.
Petru. If you can carry't so, 'tis very well.
Bya. No, you shall carry it, Sir.
Petru. Peace gentle Low-bel.
Petron. Use no more words, but come down instantly,
I charge thee by the duty of a child.
Petru. Prethee come Maria, I forgive all.
Mar. Stay there ”

“ Grumio. Where is he?
Enter Curtis a Seruant.
Cur. In her chamber, making a sermon of continencie to her, and railes, and sweares, and rates, that shee (poore soule) knowes not which way to stand, to looke, to speake, and sits as one new risen from a dreame. Away, away, for he is comming hither. Enter Petruchio. ”

“ My name is Vincentio, and I am going to visit a son of mine who lives at Padua. Then Petruchio knew the old gentleman to be the father of Lucentio, a young gentleman who was to be married to Baptista's younger daughter, Bianca, and he made Vincentio very happy, by telling him the rich marriage his son was about to make; and they all journeyed on pleasantly together till they came to Baptista's house, where there was a large company assembled to celebrate the wedding of Bianca and Lucentio, Baptista having willingly consented to the marriage of Bianca when he had got Katherine off his hands. ”

“ After the ceremony was over, while they were yet in the church, he called for wine, and drank a loud health to the company, and threw a sop which was at the bottom of the glass full in the sexton's face, giving no other reason for this strange act, than that the sexton's beard grew thin and hungerly, and seemed to ask the sop as he was drinking. Never sure was there such a mad marriage; but Petruchio did but put this wildness on, the better to succeed in the plot he had formed to tame his shrewish wife. ”

“ And now it was Hortensio's turn to send for his wife; and he said to his servant: 'Go, and entreat my wife to come to me.' 'Oh ho! entreat her!' said Petruchio. 'Nay, then, she needs must come.' 'I am afraid, sir,' said Hortensio, 'your wife will not be entreated.' But presently this civil husband looked a little blank, when the servant returned without his mistress; and he said to him: 'How now! Where is my wife?' 'Sir,' said the servant, 'my mistress says, you have some goodly jest in hand, and therefore she will not come. She bids you come to her.' 'Worse and worse!' said Petruchio ”

“ Shelley wrote a burlesque of this poem, entitled Peter Bell the Third, intended to ridicule the ludicrous puerility of language and sentiment which Wordsworth often affected. This burlesque was given the name of the Third because it followed a parody already published as Peter the Second.
Petruchio (pe-trö ́chō, or ki-ō) .—A gentleman of Verona, in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. A very honest fellow, who hardly speaks a word of truth, and succeeds in all his tricks. He acts his assumed character to the life, with untired animal spirits, and without a particle of ill-humor. ”

“ After Eletta had settled at Ancisa, Petracco often visited her by stealth, and the pledges of their affection were two other sons, one of whom died in childhood. The other, called Gherardo, was educated along with Petrarch. Petrarch remained with his mother at Ancisa for seven years.
The arrival of the Emperor, Henry VII., in Italy, revived the hopes of the banished Florentines; and Petracco, in order to wait the event, went to Pisa, whither he brought his wife and Francesco, who was now in his eighth year. Petracco remained with his family in Pisa for several months ”

“ Petracco contracted an intimacy with Settimo, a Genoese, who was like himself, an exile for his political principles, and who fixed his abode at Avignon with his wife and his boy, Guido Settimo, who was about the same age with Petrarch. The two youths formed a friendship, which subsisted between them for life.
Petrarch manifested signs of extraordinary sensibility to the charms of nature in his childhood, both when he was at Carpentras and at Avignon. One day, when he was at the latter residence, a party was made up, to see the fountain of Vaucluse, a few leagues from Avignon. ”

“ Petracco and his wife first settled at Arezzo, a very ancient city of Tuscany. Hostilities did not cease between the Florentine factions till some years afterwards; and, in an attempt made by the Whites to take Florence by assault, Petracco was present with his party. They were repulsed. This action, which was fatal to their cause, took place in the night between the 19th and 20th days of July, 1304,—the precise date of the birth of Petrarch. ”

“ Petrarch did not distinguish himself by love-poetry alone in the Italian language. His odes to Giacomo Colonna, to Cola di Rienzi and to the princes of Italy display him in another light. They exhibit the oratorical fervour, the pleader’s eloquence in its most perfect lustre, which Petrarch possessed in no less measure than subjective passion. Modern literature has nothing nobler, nothing more harmonious in the declamatory style than these three patriotic effusions. Their spirit itself is epoch-making in the history of Europe. Up to this point Italy had scarcely begun to exist. ”

“ In the night are heard dreadful howlings round the walls of towns, and and in the day terrible voices crying incessantly to arms. What music is this compared with those soft and harmonious sounds which. I drew from my lute at Avignon!"
On his arrival at Capranica, Petrarch despatched a courier to the Bishop of Lombes, informing him where he was, and of his inability to get to Rome, all roads to it being beset by the enemy. The Bishop expressed great joy at his friend's arrival in Italy, and went to meet him at Capranica, with Stefano Colonna, his brother, senator of Rome. ”

“ The town, which had fared hardly during the later years of Azzo's rule, was now under the undisputed sway of Luchino Visconti, and Petrarch found the conditions there much improved. We may infer that he now enjoyed a [Pg 113] tolerable income from his benefices; he was at any rate able to build himself a house, which still stands at the corner of Borgo di San Giovanni and Vicolo di San Stephano. He seems always to have had a genuine fondness for outdoor life as a relief and recreation. ”

“ The rising moon is not so large as the giant's eye. And this eye was not even like other people's, but in the middle of the giant's forehead. Such was the eye! What could the rest have been! Petru was a brave hero, but he heartily thanked God, the flute, and Holy Friday, that he had not got into a fight with this monster of a man, and softly continued his way. The prince had walked about as far as a man usually goes before he feels inclined to sit down in the shade, when he encountered still more terrible foes. ”