With him a
thing's being plain and reasonable is a reason against it. The airs
he gives himself are infinite, and his caprices as sudden as they
are groundless. The whole of his treatment of his wife at home is in
the same spirit of ironical attention and inverted gallantry.
Everything flies before his will, like a conjurer's wand, and he
only metamorphoses his wife's temper by metamorphosing her senses
and all the objects she sees, at a word's speaking. Such are his
insisting that it is the moon and not the sun which they see, &c.
This extravagance reaches its most pleasant and poetical height in
the scene where, on their return to her father's, they meet old
Vincentio, whom Petruchio immediately addresses as a young lady:
Petruchio. Good morrow, gentle mistress, where away?
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Such war of white and red within her cheeks;
What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty,
As those two eyes become that heav'nly face?
Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee:
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.
Hortensio. He'll make the man mad to make a woman of him.
Katherine. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man whom favourable stars
Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow.
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