Dia. It might be yours, or hers, for aught I know.

King. Take her away: I do not like her now. To prison with her; and away with him.

Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring, Thou diest within this hour.

Dia.

King. Take her away.
Dia.

I'll never tell you.

I'll put in bail, my liege.

King. I think thee now some common cus

tomer.

Dia. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you. King. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this while?

Dia. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty. He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't: I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not. Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life! I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.

[Pointing to LAFEU.

King. She does abuse our ears: To prison with

her!

Dia. Good mother, fetch my bail. - [Exit Wid.]
Stay, royal sir.

The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
And he shall surety me. But for this lord,
Who hath abus'd me, as he knows himself,
Though yet he never harm'd me, here I 'quit him.
He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd,

And at that time he got his wife with child:

Dead though she be, she feels her young one

kick:

So, there's my riddle, one that's dead is quick;
And now behold the meaning.

King.

Re-enter Widow, with HELENA.

Is there no exorcist"

Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?

Is't real, that I see?

Hel.

No, my good lord:

"Tis but the shadow of the wife you see;

The name, and not the thing.

Bcr.

Both, both! O, pardon!

Hel. O my good lord, when I was like this

maid,

There is your ring; letter: this it says:

I found you wondrous kind. And, look you, here's your "When from my finger you can get this ring, And are by me with child," &c. - This is done: Will you be mine, now you are doubly won ? Ber. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,

I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

Hel. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue, Deadly divorce step between me and you! O! my dear mother, do I see you living?

Laf. Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon. -[TO PAROLLES.] Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkerchief: so, I thank thee. Wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee: let thy courtesies alone, they are scurvy ones.

King. Let us from point to point this story know,

To make the even truth in pleasure flow.—

24 Exorcist and conjurer were synonymous in the Poet's time Thus in Julius Cæsar: "Thou like an exorcist hast conjur'd up my mortified spirit." And in Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598 "Essorcista, a conjurer, an exorcist."

[To DIANA.] If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped

flower,

Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
For I can guess, that by thy honest aid

Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.
Of that, and all the progress, more and less,
Resolvedly more leisure shall express :
All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

[Flourish

The king's a beggar, now the play is done.
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day:
Ours be your patience, then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

[Exeunt

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW makes the eleventh in the division of Comedies in the folio of 1623, where it was first printed; or, if there were an earlier impression, no copy of it has reached us. In the original the acts are distinguished, but not the scenes. And the text is in general so clear as to leave little room for critical controversy.

No certain contemporary notice of this play having been dis covered, we have no external guide to the probable date of the composition. So that here we must make the best we can out of such judgments as come recommended to our hands. Malone at first thought the play was written in 1606, but this opinion did not hold: he says, -“On a more attentive perusal of it, and more experience in our author's style and manner, I am persuaded that it was one of his very early productions, and near, in point of time, to The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona." Farmer thought the Induction to be in the Poet's best manner, and a great part of the play in his worst, or even below it; that more than one hand was concerned in it, and that Shakespeare had little to do with any of the scenes where Katharine and Petruchio are not engaged. To which Steevens replies, "I know not to whom I could impute this comedy, if Shakespeare was not its author: I think his hand is visible in almost every scene, though perhaps not so evidently as in those which pass between Katharine and Petruchio." Mr. Collier, whɔse judgment in such matters is always deserving of respect, was once of the opinion that it should be set down to 1606; but bis later sentence is for 1601, or 1602. We should attach more weight to his judgment herein, had he withheld the reasons thereof One of which is, that in Hamlet Shakespeare used Baptista as the name of a woman, but, before he wrote The Taming of the Shrew had found cut the mistake. He adds, The great probability