Page:Tales from Shakspeare (1831).djvu/223

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TAMING OF THE SHREW.
207

such a perfect subjection, that she dared not remember there was such a word as contradiction, would Petruchio allow her to go to her father's house; and even while they were upon their journey thither, she was in danger of being turned back again, only because she happened to hint it was the sun, when he affirmed the moon shone brightly at noonday. "Now, by my mother's son," said he, "and that is myself, it shall be the moon, or stars, or what I list, before I journey to your father's house." He then made as if he were going back again; but Katherine, no longer Katherine the Shrew, but the obedient mfe, said, "Let us go forward, I pray, now we have come so far, and it shall be the sun, or moon, or what you please, and if you please to call it a rush candle henceforth, I vow it shall be so for me." This he was resolved to prove, therefore he said again, "I say, it is the moon." "I know it is the moon," replied Katherine. "You lie, it is the blessed sun," said Petruchio. "Then it is the blessed sun," replied Katherine; "but sun it is not, when you say it is not. What you will have it named even so it is, and so it ever shall be for Katherine." Now then he suffered her to proceed on her journey; but further to try if this yielding humour would last, he addressed an old gentleman they met on the road as if he had been a young woman, saying to him, "Good morrow, gentle mistress;" and asked Katherine if she had ever beheld a fairer gentlewoman, praising the red and white of the old man's cheeks, and