But love, fair looks, and true obedience;

Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such, a woman oweth to her husband:
And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And, not obedient to his honest will,

What is she, but a foul contending rebel,
And graceless traitor to her loving lord ?-
I am asham'd, that women are so simple
To offer war, where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world;
But that our soft conditions, and our hearts,
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great; my reason, haply, more,
To bandy word for word, and frown for frown:
But now, I see our lances are but straws;
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,-
That seeming to be most, which we least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot;
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

2

Pet. Why, there's a wench!-Come on, and kiss

me, Kate.

Luc. Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.

Vin. 'Tis a good hearing, when children are toward.

Luc. But a harsh hearing, when women are froward.

our soft conditions,] The gentle qualities of our minds. 3 Then vail your stomachs,] i. e. abate your pride, your spirit.

:

Pet. Come, Kate, we'll to-bed:-
We three are married, but you two are sped.*
'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;'
[To LUCENTIO.

And, being a winner, God give you good night!
[Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATH.
Hor. Now go thy ways, thou hast tam'd a curst

shrew.
Luc. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be
tam'd so.
[Exeunt.

4

for you have wives who exhibit early proofs of disobedience.

5

you two are sped.] i. e. the fate of you both is decided; - though you hit the white;] To hit the white is a phrase borrowed from archery: the mark was commonly white. Here it alludes to the name, Bianca, or white.

* WINTER'S TALE.] This play, throughout, is written in the very spirit of its author. And in telling this homely and simple, though agreeable, country tale,

Our sweetest Shakspeare, fancy's child,
Warbles his native wood-notes wild.

This was necessary to observe in mere justice to the play; as the meanness of the fable, and the extravagant conduct of it, had misled some of great name into a wrong judgment of its merit; which, as far as it regards sentiment and character, is scarce inferior to any in the whole collection. WARBURTON.

At Stationers' Hall, May 22, 1594, Edward White entered "A booke entitled A Wynter Nyght's Pastime." STEEVENS. The story of this play is taken from the Pleasant History of Dorastus and Fawnia, written by Robert Greene. JOHNSON. In this novel, the King of Sicilia, whom Shakspeare names

Leontes, is called..

Egistus.

The parts of Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus, are of the poet's own invention; but many circumstances of the novel are omitted in the play. STEEVENS.

Dr. Warburton, by some of great name," means Dryden and Pope. See the Essay at the end of the Second Part of The Conquest of Grenada: "Witness the lameness of their plots; [the plots of Shakspeare and Fletcher;) many of which, especially those which they wrote first, (for even that age refined itself in some measure,) were made up of some ridiculous incoherent story, which in one play many times took up the business of an age. I suppose I need not name, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, [and here, by-the-by, Dryden expressly names Pericles as our author's production,) nor the historical plays of Shakspeare; besides many of the rest, as The Winter's Tale, Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least so meanly written, that the comedy neither caused your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment." Mr. Pope, in the Preface to his edition of our author's plays, pronounced the same ill-considered judgnment on the play before us: I should conjecture (says he,) of some of the others, particularly Love's Labour's Lost, THE WINTER'S TALE, Comedy of Errors, and Titus Andronicus, that only some cha

"

K 2