Act IV, Scene 5 is the pivotal scene in which Katharina's submission is dramatised most explicitly and most ambiguously. The sun-and-moon exchange is a carefully structured rhetorical contest: Petruchio asserts a manifest falsehood, Katharina initially resists with empirical fact, and then—after Hortensio's pragmatic nudge—she capitulates. Yet her capitulation speech is far from simple defeat. The lines "But sun it is not, when you say it is not; / And the moon changes even as your mind" contain a pointed critique of Petruchio's arbitrariness, suggesting that Katharina yields on her own terms, preserving an ironic awareness even as she performs compliance.The scene's central power dynamic is enacted through language itself. Petruchio's control over naming—his insistence that reality conforms to his word—mirrors the patriarchal authority he exercises over Katharina's identity. That she agrees to call the sun a "rush-candle" if he wishes underscores how completely linguistic authority has been transferred. Shakespeare frames this as a kind of game, but the stakes are serious: whoever controls the name controls the world. Hortensio's sporting metaphor—"the field is won"—reinforces the scene's framing as a contest with a victor and a vanquished.The Vincentio episode immediately tests and displays Katharina's new performative compliance. When she addresses the...
Act IV, Scene 5
Scene Summary
On the road to Padua, Petruchio insists the sun is the moon, forcing Katharina into a battle of wills. Hortensio urges her to capitulate, and she does—agreeing to call the sun whatever Petruchio names it, even acknowledging that his mind shifts as the moon does. Hortensio declares the contest over: the field is won.
The party then encounters the elderly Vincentio, father of Lucentio. Petruchio addresses him as a young woman; Katharina follows suit, praising his beauty. When Petruchio corrects her, she apologises gracefully to Vincentio. Petruchio reveals that Vincentio's son has married Bianca, and the group agrees to travel together to Padua. Left alone, Hortensio resolves to apply Petruchio's methods to his own widow.
"And the moon changes even as your mind." — Katharina (4.5)
"What you will have it named, even that it is; / And so it shall be so for Katharina." — Katharina (4.5)
"Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won." — Hortensio (4.5)
"Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet, / Whither away, or where is thy abode?" — Katharina (4.5)
"Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes, / That have been so bedazzled with the sun / That everything I look on seemeth green." — Katharina (4.5)
"Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run, / And not unluckily against the bias." — Petruchio (4.5)
"Have to my widow! and if she be froward, / Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward." — Hortensio (4.5)
Click any tag to explore where it appears across the play, then ask the Bard to explain how it works in this scene.