No Fear Shakespeare
The Taming of the Shrew
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 2, Scene 1, Page 14
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Enter BAPTISTA,
GREMIO, and TRANIO
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BAPTISTA, GREMIO,
and TRANIO enter. |
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Here comes your father. Never make denial.
I must and will have Katherine to my wife.
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Here comes your father. Don’t even think about refusing.
I must and will have Katherine for my wife.
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BAPTISTA
Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?
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BAPTISTA
Now, Signior Petruchio, how are you getting on with my
daughter?
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PETRUCHIO
How but well, sir? How but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.
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PETRUCHIO
Beautifully, sir, beautifully! It couldn’t go any other
way.
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BAPTISTA
Why, how now, daughter Katherine? In your dumps?
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BAPTISTA
Now, daughter Katherine? Are you down in the dumps?
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KATHERINE
Call you me daughter? Now, I promise you
You have showed a tender fatherly regard
To wish me wed to one half lunatic,
A mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.
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KATHERINE
You have the nerve to call me daughter? Is this a
father’s loving care—wanting to marry me off to
a total madman, a worthless, irresponsible louse who thinks if he
swears enough, he’ll get his way?
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PETRUCHIO
Father, ’tis thus: yourself and all the world
That talked of her have talked amiss of her.
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she’s not froward, but modest as the dove.
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn.
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity.
And to conclude, we have 'greed so well together,
That upon Sunday is the wedding day.
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PETRUCHIO
Sir, this is the truth: you and the rest—all the
people who have ever talked about her—have all been
wrong. If she seems fierce, it’s for a reason.
She’s not obstinate but gentle as the dove, not high-strung
but peaceful as the morning. She has the patience of a Griselda and
the modesty of Rome’s Lucrece. In short, we’ve
gotten along so well that Sunday is our wedding day.
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KATHERINE
I’ll see thee hanged on Sunday first.
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KATHERINE
I’ll see you hanged on Sunday first!
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GREMIO
Hark, Petruchio: she says she’ll see thee hanged
first.
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GREMIO
Listen to that Petruchio: she says she’ll see you hanged
first.
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