In particular, we have used the colon far more than many editors: it is exceptionally useful as a way of indicating how many Shakespearean speeches unfold clause by clause in a developing argument that gives the illusion of enacting the process of thinking in the moment. We have also kept in mind the origin of punctuation in classical times as a way of assisting the actor and orator: the comma suggests the briefest of pauses for breath, the colon a middling one and a full stop or period a longer pause. Semicolons, by contrast, belong to an era of punctuation that was only just coming in during Shakespeare’s time and that is coming to an end now: we have accordingly only used them where they occur in our copy-texts (and not always then). Dashes are sometimes used for parenthetical interjections where the Folio has brackets. They are also used for interruptions and changes in train of thought. Where a change of addressee occurs within a speech, we have used a dash preceded by a full stop (or occasionally another form of punctuation). Often the identity of the respective addressees is obvious from the context. When it is not, this has been indicated in a marginal stage direction.

Entrances and Exits are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g. “[and Attendants]”). Exit is sometimes silently normalized to Exeunt and Manet anglicized to “remains.” We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors.

Editorial Stage Directions such as stage business, asides, indications of addressee and of characters’ position on the gallery stage are only used sparingly in Folio. Other editions mingle directions of this kind with original Folio and Quarto directions, sometimes marking them by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as directorial interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing them in the right margin in a different typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as an Aside? (often a line may be equally effective as an aside or a direct address—it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or a may exit or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.

Explanatory Notes explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to non-standard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g. legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.

Textual Notes at the end of the play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign, with “Q” indicating a reading from the 1594 First Quarto text of The Taming of a Shrew, “F” from the First Folio of 1623, “F2” a correction introduced in the Second Folio of 1632, “F3” a correction from the Third Folio of 1664 and “Ed” one that derives from the subsequent editorial tradition. The rejected Folio (“F”) reading is then given. Thus for Act 2 scene 1 line 250: “2.1.250 askance = Ed. F = a sconce.” This means that we have preferred the editorial emendation “askance” which makes sense of the line “Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,” whereas “a sconce” makes none and must be a scribal or printing error.

KEY FACTS

MAJOR PARTS (with percentages of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage): Petruchio (22%/158/8), Tranio (11%/90/8), Kate (8%/82/8), Hortensio (8%/70/8), Baptista (7%/68/6), Lucentio (7%/61/8), Grumio (6%/63/4), Gremio (6%/58/6), Lord (5%/17/2), Biondello (4%/39/7), Bianca (3%/29/7), Sly (2%/24/3), Vincentio (2%/23/3), Pedant (2%/20/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose.

DATE: Usually considered to be one of Shakespeare’s earliest works. Assuming that Quarto The Taming of a Shrew, registered for publication May 1594, is a version of the text rather than a source for it (see below), the play is likely to predate the long periods of plague closure that inhibited theatrical activity from summer 1592 onward, but there is no firm evidence for a more precise date.

SOURCES: The Induction’s scenario of a beggar transported into luxury is a traditional motif in ballads and the folk tradition; the shrewish wife is also common in fabliaux and other forms of popular tale, as well as classical comedy; Socrates, wisest of the ancients, was supposed to be married to the shrewish Xanthippe; the courtship of Bianca is developed from George Gascoigne’s Supposes (1566), itself a prose translation of Ludovico Ariosto’s I Suppositi (1509), an archetypal Italian Renaissance comedy suffused with conventions derived from the ancient Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence. Some scholars suppose that The Taming of a Shrew (1594) is a badly printed text of an older play that was Shakespeare’s primary source, but others regard it as an adaptation of Shakespeare’s work; it includes the Christopher Sly frame, the taming of Kate (with a differently named tamer) and a highly variant version of the Bianca subplot.

TEXT: The 1623 Folio is the only authoritative text; it seems to have been set from manuscript copy, possibly a scribal transcript that retains some of the marks of Shakespeare’s working manuscript. The 1594 Quarto Taming of a Shrew must be regarded as an autonomous work, but it provides a source for emendations on a few occasions where it corresponds closely to The Shrew.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

LIST OF PARTS

in the Induction

Christopher SLY, a drunken beggar/tinker

A LORD

HOSTESS

A PAGE named Bartholomew

Players

Huntsmen

Servants

BAPTISTA Minola, a gentleman of Padua

KATE (Katherina), his elder daughter, the “shrew”

BIANCA, his younger daughter

PETRUCHIO, a gentleman from Verona, suitor to Kate

LUCENTIO, in love with Bianca (disguises himself as “Cambio,” a Latin tutor)

VINCENTIO, Lucentio’s father, a merchant from Pisa

GREMIO, an aged suitor to Bianca

HORTENSIO, friend of Petruchio and suitor to Bianca (disguises himself as “Litio,” a music tutor)

TRANIO, Lucentio’s servant

BIONDELLO, a boy in the service of Lucentio

Petruchio’s servants

GRUMIO

CURTIS

A PEDANT

A WIDOW

A TAILOR

A HABERDASHER

Servants and Messengers (Petruchio has servants named NATHANIEL, JOSEPH, NICHOLAS, PHILIP, and PETER)

[Induction] Scene 1

running scene 1

Location: rural England

Enter Beggar and Hostess, [the beggar is called] Christopher Sly

SLY    I’ll pheeze1 you, in faith.

HOSTESS    A pair of stocks2, you rogue!

SLY    You’re a baggage3, the Slys are no rogues. Look in the
    chronicles4, we came in with Richard Conqueror: therefore
    paucas pallabris5, let the world slide. Sessa!

HOSTESS    You will not pay for the glasses you have burst6?

SLY    No, not a denier7. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy
    cold bed8 and warm thee.

HOSTESS    I know my remedy: I must go fetch the thirdborough9.

[Exit]

SLY    Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I’ll answer him by
    law10. I’ll not budge an inch, boy. Let him come, and kindly11.

[He] falls asleep

Wind horns.