What I learned from the shrew

So, Petruchio visits her father, Baptista, whom he informs that he wishes to woo his daughter, who, Petruchio says, is probably just misunderstood and, in all likelihood, a "really nice gal underneath all that violent rage."

Baptista asks if they are talking about the same "Katharine." Suddenly Katharine’s music teacher comes stumbling into the room screaming that Katherine broke her lute over his head after he criticized her performance.

The determined Petruchio makes a mental note not to leave any sharp musical instruments around, and presses Baptista for his blessing, which Baptista quickly gives, knowing that this may be his only chance to one day die of natural causes.

To make a long story short, the tricky Petruchio vows to "tame the shrew," and does so by being pretty darn snotty to her.

For example, after his servants cook up a perfectly good meal, Petruchio flings the meat away, pretending it was poorly prepared, thus depriving the famished Katharine of a meal. And his servants don’t fare much better. He calls them things like, "heedless joltheads," and "malt-horse drudge," which, when you think about it, isn’t very nice at all. (But only after you think about it.)

By the time he’s finished with her, Katharine is so "tamed," that she’s ready to admit that the full moon lighting the night sky is actually the noonday sun beating down on her face, simply because her husband dictates it as so.

But wait; there’s more. One day while a journey, the couple spots an old man on the side of the road, and Petruchio decides to further test his wife by maintaining that the old man is actually a young maiden.

"Good morrow, gentle mistress," he says to the old man, and asks Katharine if she has ever beheld a fairer gentlewoman. "Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake."

The story doesn’t say what the old man thought, but I imagine he decided right then and there that he would finally break down and buy that ear horn his wife had been lecturing him about.

Katharine, who probably was wishing she was back home slugging her music instructor as in the good old days, felt entirely vanquished, and said to the old man (who didn’t even resemble a young budding virgin), "Young budding virgin, you are fair, and fresh, and sweet: whither are you going, and where is your dwelling? Happy are the parents of so fair a child."

"Why, how now, Kate," replies Petruchio, who is really being a heedless jolthead at this moment. "I hope you are not mad. This is a man, old and wrinkled, faded and withered, and not a maiden, as you say he is."

"Pardon me, old gentleman," Katharine says, feeling as if her brain has just been put through a Play Dough Fun Factory. "The sun has so dazzled my eyes, that everything I look on seemeth green. Now I perceive you are a reverend father: I hope you will pardon me for my sad mistake."

Meanwhile, the old man’s thinking, "Forget the ear horn, I need to get a hair cut, maybe grow some whiskers."

The first time I read this story (okay, the only time I read this story) was in high school. In the tiny world that is my mind, every Shakespeare story is a bit like an art show unto itself. Some passages are beautiful, and some I just don’t get. ("Unto a mad-brain rudesby full of spleen," Katharine says at one point. I like the line a lot. In fact, I plan to use it at our next department head meeting in reply to Dan Stremel’s "roundtable" comments. But can anyone tell me what it means?)

Nearly 400 years after writing "The Taming of the Shrew," there is one aspect of the story that hits a universal raw nerve, one that, sadly, time has not managed to heal. It’s the idea that anyone can be so trodden upon that they willingly accept that which is not true — that the dark of night is actually a sun-filled day, that an old man is actually a young maiden, that abortion is not killing, that slashing federal aid programs will give our sick, disabled, and elderly a secure future, that you can promote peace by waging war. ...