Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
“Then,” cried Katharine, losing patience, “let it be both, or one, or
anything thou wilt.”
“Why, then,” said the servant, “the mustard without the beef!”
Then Katharine saw he was making fun of her, and boxed his ears.
Just then Petruchio brought her some food--but she had scarcely begun
to satisfy her hunger, before he called for the tailor to bring her new
clothes, and the table was cleared, leaving her still hungry. Katharine
was pleased with the pretty new dress and cap that the tailor had made
for her, but Petruchio found fault with everything, flung the cap and
gown on the floor vowing his dear wife should not wear any such foolish
things.
“I will have them,” cried Katharine. “All gentlewomen wear such caps as
these--”
“When you are gentle you shall have one too,” he answered, “and not
till then.” When he had driven away the tailor with angry words--but
privately asking his friend to see him paid--Petruchio said--
“Come, Kate, let's go to your father's, shabby as we are, for as the
sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in the meanest
habit. It is about seven o'clock now. We shall easily get there by
dinner-time.”
“It's nearly two,” said Kate, but civilly enough, for she had grown to
see that she could not bully her husband, as she had done her father and
her sister; “it's nearly two, and it will be supper-time before we get
there.”
“It shall be seven,” said Petruchio, obstinately, “before I start. Why,
whatever I say or do, or think, you do nothing but contradict. I won't
go to-day, and before I do go, it shall be what o'clock I say it is.”
At last they started for her father's house.
“Look at the moon,” said he.
“It's the sun,” said Katharine, and indeed it was.
“I say it is the moon. Contradicting again! It shall be sun or moon, or
whatever I choose, or I won't take you to your father's.”
Then Katharine gave in, once and for all. “What you will have it named,”
she said, “it is, and so it shall be so for Katharine.” And so it was,
for from that moment Katharine felt that she had met her master, and
never again showed her naughty tempers to him, or anyone else.
So they journeyed on to Baptista's house, and arriving there, they found
all folks keeping Bianca's wedding feast, and that of another newly
married couple, Hortensio and his wife. They were made welcome, and sat
down to the feast, and all was merry, save that Hortensio's wife, seeing
Katharine subdued to her husband, thought she could safely say many
disagreeable things, that in the old days, when Katharine was free and
froward, she would not have dared to say. But Katharine answered with
such spirit and such moderation, that she turned the laugh against the
new bride.
After dinner, when the ladies had retired, Baptista joined in a laugh
against Petruchio, saying “Now in good sadness, son Petruchio, I fear
you have got the veriest shrew of all.”
“You are wrong,” said Petruchio, “let me prove it to you. Each of us
shall send a message to his wife, desiring her to come to him, and the
one whose wife comes most readily shall win a wager which we will agree
on.”
The others said yes readily enough, for each thought his own wife the
most dutiful, and each thought he was quite sure to win the wager.
They proposed a wager of twenty crowns.
“Twenty crowns,” said Petruchio, “I'll venture so much on my hawk or
hound, but twenty times as much upon my wife.”
“A hundred then,” cried Lucentio, Bianca's husband.
“Content,” cried the others.
Then Lucentio sent a message to the fair Bianca bidding her to come to
him. And Baptista said he was certain his daughter would come. But the
servant coming back, said--
“Sir, my mistress is busy, and she cannot come.”'
“There's an answer for you,” said Petruchio.
“You may think yourself fortunate if your wife does not send you a
worse.”
“I hope, better,” Petruchio answered. Then Hortensio said--
“Go and entreat my wife to come to me at once.”
“Oh--if you entreat her,” said Petruchio.
“I am afraid,” answered Hortensio, sharply, “do what you can, yours will
not be entreated.”
But now the servant came in, and said--
“She says you are playing some jest, she will not come.”
“Better and better,” cried Petruchio; “now go to your mistress and say I
command her to come to me.”
They all began to laugh, saying they knew what her answer would be, and
that she would not come.
Then suddenly Baptista cried--
“Here comes Katharine!” And sure enough--there she was.
“What do you wish, sir?” she asked her husband.
“Where are your sister and Hortensio's wife?”
“Talking by the parlor fire.”
“Fetch them here.”
When she was gone to fetch them, Lucentio said--
“Here is a wonder!”
“I wonder what it means,” said Hortensio.
“It means peace,” said Petruchio, “and love, and quiet life.”
“Well,” said Baptista, “you have won the wager, and I will add
another twenty thousand crowns to her dowry--another dowry for another
daughter--for she is as changed as if she were someone else.”
So Petruchio won his wager, and had in Katharine always a loving wife
and true, and now he had broken her proud and angry spirit he loved her
well, and there was nothing ever but love between those two. And so they
lived happy ever afterwards.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
More centuries ago than I care to say, the people of Vienna were
governed too mildly. The reason was that the reigning Duke Vicentio was
excessively good-natured, and disliked to see offenders made unhappy.
The consequence was that the number of ill-behaved persons in Vienna
was enough to make the Duke shake his head in sorrow when his chief
secretary showed him it at the end of a list. He decided, therefore,
that wrongdoers must be punished. But popularity was dear to him. He
knew that, if he were suddenly strict after being lax, he would cause
people to call him a tyrant. For this reason he told his Privy Council
that he must go to Poland on important business of state. “I have chosen
Angelo to rule in my absence,” said he.
Now this Angelo, although he appeared to be noble, was really a mean
man. He had promised to marry a girl called Mariana, and now would have
nothing to say to her, because her dowry had been lost. So poor Mariana
lived forlornly, waiting every day for the footstep of her stingy lover,
and loving him still.
Having appointed Angelo his deputy, the Duke went to a friar called
Thomas and asked him for a friar's dress and instruction in the art of
giving religious counsel, for he did not intend to go to Poland, but to
stay at home and see how Angelo governed.
Angelo had not been a day in office when he condemned to death a young
man named Claudio for an act of rash selfishness which nowadays would
only be punished by severe reproof.
Claudio had a queer friend called Lucio, and Lucio saw a chance of
freedom for Claudio if Claudio's beautiful sister Isabella would plead
with Angelo.
Isabella was at that time living in a nunnery. Nobody had won her heart,
and she thought she would like to become a sister, or nun.
Meanwhile Claudio did not lack an advocate.
An ancient lord, Escalus, was for leniency. “Let us cut a little, but
not kill,” he said. “This gentleman had a most noble father.”
Angelo was unmoved. “If twelve men find me guilty, I ask no more mercy
than is in the law.”
Angelo then ordered the Provost to see that Claudio was executed at nine
the next morning.
After the issue of this order Angelo was told that the sister of the
condemned man desired to see him.
“Admit her,” said Angelo.
On entering with Lucio, the beautiful girl said, “I am a woeful suitor
to your Honor.”
“Well?” said Angelo.
She colored at his chill monosyllable and the ascending red increased
the beauty of her face. “I have a brother who is condemned to die,” she
continued. “Condemn the fault, I pray you, and spare my brother.”
“Every fault,” said Angelo, “is condemned before it is committed. A
fault cannot suffer. Justice would be void if the committer of a fault
went free.”
She would have left the court if Lucio had not whispered to her, “You
are too cold; you could not speak more tamely if you wanted a pin.”
So Isabella attacked Angelo again, and when he said, “I will not pardon
him,” she was not discouraged, and when he said, “He's sentenced; 'tis
too late,” she returned to the assault. But all her fighting was with
reasons, and with reasons she could not prevail over the Deputy.
She told him that nothing becomes power like mercy. She told him that
humanity receives and requires mercy from Heaven, that it was good to
have gigantic strength, and had to use it like a giant. She told him
that lightning rives the oak and spares the myrtle. She bade him look
for fault in his own breast, and if he found one, to refrain from making
it an argument against her brother's life.
Angelo found a fault in his breast at that moment. He loved Isabella's
beauty, and was tempted to do for her beauty what he would not do for
the love of man.
He appeared to relent, for he said, “Come to me to-morrow before noon.”
She had, at any rate, succeeded in prolonging her brother's life for a
few hours.'
In her absence Angelo's conscience rebuked him for trifling with his
judicial duty.
When Isabella called on him the second time, he said, “Your brother
cannot live.”
Isabella was painfully astonished, but all she said was, “Even so.
Heaven keep your Honor.”
But as she turned to go, Angelo felt that his duty and honor were slight
in comparison with the loss of her.
“Give me your love,” he said, “and Claudio shall be freed.”
“Before I would marry you, he should die if he had twenty heads to lay
upon the block,” said Isabella, for she saw then that he was not the
just man he pretended to be.
So she went to her brother in prison, to inform him that he must die.
At first he was boastful, and promised to hug the darkness of death.
But when he clearly understood that his sister could buy his life by
marrying Angelo, he felt his life more valuable than her happiness, and
he exclaimed, “Sweet sister, let me live.”
“O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!” she cried.
At this moment the Duke came forward, in the habit of a friar, to
request some speech with Isabella. He called himself Friar Lodowick.
The Duke then told her that Angelo was affianced to Mariana, whose
love-story he related. He then asked her to consider this plan. Let
Mariana, in the dress of Isabella, go closely veiled to Angelo, and say,
in a voice resembling Isabella's, that if Claudio were spared she would
marry him. Let her take the ring from Angelo's little finger, that it
might be afterwards proved that his visitor was Mariana.
Isabella had, of course, a great respect for friars, who are as nearly
like nuns as men can be. She agreed, therefore, to the Duke's plan. They
were to meet again at the moated grange, Mariana's house.
In the street the Duke saw Lucio, who, seeing a man dressed like a
friar, called out, “What news of the Duke, friar?” “I have none,” said
the Duke.
Lucio then told the Duke some stories about Angelo. Then he told one
about the Duke. The Duke contradicted him. Lucio was provoked, and
called the Duke “a shallow, ignorant fool,” though he pretended to love
him. “The Duke shall know you better if I live to report you,” said the
Duke, grimly. Then he asked Escalus, whom he saw in the street, what he
thought of his ducal master. Escalus, who imagined he was speaking to a
friar, replied, “The Duke is a very temperate gentleman, who prefers to
see another merry to being merry himself.”
The Duke then proceeded to call on Mariana.
Isabella arrived immediately afterwards, and the Duke introduced the