The Taming of the Shrew Study Guide

Act IV, Scene 5

A public road

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.

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Original Text
[Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Servants] PETRUCHIO Come on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's. Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon! KATHARINA The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now. PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon that shines so bright. KATHARINA I know it is the sun that shines so bright. PETRUCHIO Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself, It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, Or ere I journey to your father's house. Go on, and fetch our horses back again. Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd! HORTENSIO Say as he says, or we shall never go. KATHARINA Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And be it moon, or sun, or what you please: An if you please to call it a rush-candle, Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me. PETRUCHIO I say it is the moon. KATHARINA I know it is the moon. PETRUCHIO Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun. KATHARINA Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun: But sun it is not, when you say it is not; And the moon changes even as your mind. What you will have it named, even that it is; And so it shall be so for Katharina. HORTENSIO Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won. PETRUCHIO Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run, And not unluckily against the bias. But, soft! company is coming here. [Enter VINCENTIO] [To VINCENTIO] 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 heavenly face? Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee. Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake. HORTENSIO A' will make the man mad, to make a woman of him. KATHARINA 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! PETRUCHIO Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad: This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd, And not a maiden, as thou say'st he is. KATHARINA Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes, That have been so bedazzled with the sun That everything I look on seemeth green: Now I perceive thou art a reverend father; Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking. PETRUCHIO Do, good old grandsire; and withal make known Which way thou travellest: if along with us, We shall be joyful of thy company. VINCENTIO Fair sir, and you my merry mistress, That with your strange encounter much amazed me, My name is call'd Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa; And bound I am to Padua; there to visit A son of mine, which long I have not seen. PETRUCHIO What is his name? VINCENTIO Lucentio, gentle sir. PETRUCHIO Happily we met; the happier for thy son. And now by law, as well as reverend age, I may entitle thee my loving father: The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman, Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not, Nor be grieved: she is of good esteem, Her dowery wealthy, and of worthy birth; Beside, so qualified as may beseem The spouse of any noble gentleman. Let me embrace with old Vincentio, And wander we to see thy honest son, Who will of thy arrival be full joyous. VINCENTIO But is it true? or else is it your pleasure, Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest Upon the company you overtake? HORTENSIO I do assure thee, father, so it is. PETRUCHIO Come, go along, and see the truth hereof; For our first merriment hath made thee jealous. [Exeunt all but HORTENSIO] HORTENSIO Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart. Have to my widow! and if she be froward, Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward. [Exit]
Modern English
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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...

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"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)

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Mr. Shifflett
Mr. Shifflett
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