A rich man named Baptista lived in Padua. He had two daughters, and they were nothing alike. The younger, Bianca, was quiet and gentle, and suitors lined up for her. The elder, Katharina, spoke roughly, and nobody came near her.
Baptista made one thing plain in front of everyone. Bianca would go to no one until the elder sister married first. That gave the men who wanted Bianca a new task. They had to find someone, anyone, who would take Katharina.
Katharina was standing there while all of this was said. People spoke of her as goods that would not sell, and she heard every word. Many called her wild, and nobody asked how she had come to be that way.
The Man Who Came for the Dowry
Then a man called Petruchio arrived in Padua. His father had died and left him money, and he meant to marry into more. He told his friends without embarrassment what he wanted. So long as she was rich, he said, it did not matter how wild she was.
When he heard about Katharina he was pleased rather than put off. A bride nobody wanted meant a large dowry and no rivals. He went to Baptista and settled the marriage first. He had not yet met her.
At their first meeting Katharina pushed him away with words. Petruchio did not go. He turned every word around and handed it back to her. When she raged he called her gentle, and when she went quiet he praised her soft speech. Then he walked out and told the town they would marry on Sunday.
A Bridegroom Late to His Own Wedding
On the wedding day the bridegroom did not come. Katharina had to stand alone in front of everyone who had gathered. He appeared only when people had begun to whisper that she had been jilted.
He wore ruined clothes and shoes that did not match. His horse was sick and his servant’s dress was a wreck. Told to change, he asked whether the bride was marrying him or his coat.
The moment the ceremony ended he refused to stay for the feast. People held on to him, and he took his wife and set out at once. His reason was that no one stops a man from taking away what is his. Katharina was carried off from her own wedding feast as its first departure.
Starving Someone and Calling It Love
At Petruchio’s house Katharina could neither eat nor sleep. When supper came he sent it back, saying the meat was burnt. When the bed was made he pulled it apart, saying the sheets were wrong. The reason each time was that he would give his wife only the best.
It went the same way when the tailor brought a new cap and gown. Katharina liked them, so he sent them away as badly shaped. For several days, everything she said she liked disappeared.
Left alone, Petruchio explains his method to us. It is how a hawk is tamed, he says, by keeping it from food and sleep. He calls it a way of holding a wife with kindness. He says this only to the audience.
Calling the Sun the Moon
On the road to her father’s feast, Petruchio looked at the midday sun and called the moon bright. Katharina said it was the sun, so he turned the horses to go home. Then Katharina corrected herself and said it was the moon. When he said it was the sun after all, she said it was the sun.
What happened next is the strangest thing in the play. They met an old man on the road, and Petruchio called him a young maiden. Katharina greeted the old man as a lovely girl. She had gone a step past what was asked of her.
Who Came When She Was Called
Three married couples came together in Padua. The husbands laid money on whose wife would come when she was sent for. Bianca did not come. The other bride said she was busy. Katharina came, and dragged the other two in with her.
Petruchio told her to say a word to the other wives. Katharina stood and began the longest speech in the play. A husband is his wife’s lord and her life, she said. Then she went as far as bending to the floor.
“And place your hands below your husband’s foot: My hand is ready; may it do him ease.” (Act 5, Scene 2)
The play explains nothing here. Not one line tells us what Katharina was thinking while she said it. Her husband is delighted and collects his winnings. The guests are astonished, and the play closes soon after.
The Man Who Was Watching This Play
One thing remains. Everything above was a play performed in front of somebody. Before it began, a drunken tinker lay in the road, and a passing lord arranged a joke. They washed him, dressed him well, and got him to believe he had been a nobleman all along.
The play the actors put on for that man is the story of Katharina and Petruchio. A man who has been fooled sits watching, while in front of him everyone pretends to be something. Shakespeare puts this frame at the very front and never takes it away.
Today, What Taming Means
To tame something is supposed to mean making it better. In this play the word points at hunger and at nights without sleep. And every part of it came with the words for your own good attached.
That phrase gets attached often enough around us. Once it comes first, the demand behind it is hard to refuse. Sometimes it is meant. Sometimes it is only there to close off the argument.
This story will not tell you which one Katharina’s last speech was. For four hundred years the person deciding that has been the reader. That is why the ending changes every time the play is staged.