I saw her coral lips to move,
And with her breath she did perfume the air:
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.
When Biondello tells the same Lucentio for his encouragement, 'I
knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to the garden for
parsley to stuff a rabbit, and so may you, sir'--there is nothing
elegant in this, and yet we hardly know which of the two passages is
the best.
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is a play within a play. It is supposed to
be a play acted for the benefit of Sly the tinker, who is made to
believe himself a lord, when he wakes after a drunken brawl. The
character of Sly and the remarks with which he accompanies the play
are as good as the play itself. His answer when he is asked how he
likes it, 'Indifferent well; 'tis a good piece of work, would 'twere
done,' is in good keeping, as if he were thinking of his Saturday
night's job. Sly does not change his tastes with his new situation,
but in the midst of splendour and luxury still calls out lustily and
repeatedly 'for a pot o' the smallest ale'. He is very slow in
giving up his personal identity in his sudden advancement. 'I am
Christophero Sly, call not me honour nor lordship. I ne'er drank
sack in my life: and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves
of beef; ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear, for I have no more
doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes
than feet, nay, sometimes more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my
toes look through the over-leather.
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