ACT III SCENE I. Padua. A room in Baptista’s house.

Enter Lucentio, Hortensio and Bianca.

 

LUCENTIO.

Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.

Have you so soon forgot the entertainment

Her sister Katherine welcome’d you withal?

 

HORTENSIO.

But, wrangling¹ pedant², this is

The patroness of heavenly harmony:

Then give me leave to have prerogative³;

And when in music we have spent an hour,

Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.

 

LUCENTIO.

Preposterous⁴ ass⁵, that never read so far

To know the cause why music was ordain’d!

Was it not to refresh the mind of man

After his studies or his usual pain?

Then give me leave to read philosophy,

And while I pause serve in your harmony.

 

HORTENSIO.

Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.

 

BIANCA.

Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,

To strive for that which resteth in my choice.

I am no breeching scholar in the schools,

I’ll not be tied to hours nor ’pointed times,

But learn my lessons as I please myself.

And, to cut off all strife⁶, here sit we down;

Take you your instrument, play you the whiles;

His lecture will be done ere you have tun’d.

 

HORTENSIO.

You’ll leave his lecture when I am in tune⁷?

 

[Retires.]

 

LUCENTIO.

That will be never: tune your instrument.

 

BIANCA.

Where left we last?

 

LUCENTIO.

Here, madam:—

Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;

Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.

 

BIANCA.

Construe⁸ them.

 

LUCENTIO.

Hic ibat, as I told you before, Simois, I am Lucentio, hic est, son unto Vincentio of Pisa, Sigeia tellus, disguised thus to get your love, Hic steterat, and that Lucentio that comes a-wooing, Priami, is my man Tranio, regia, bearing my port, celsa senis, that we might beguile⁹ the old pantaloon.

 

HORTENSIO. [Returning.]

Madam, my instrument’s in tune.

 

BIANCA.

Let’s hear.—

 

[Hortensio plays.]

 

O fie! the treble jars.

 

LUCENTIO.

Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.

 

BIANCA.

Now let me see if I can construe it: Hic ibat Simois, I know you not; hic est Sigeia tellus, I trust you not; Hic steterat Priami, take heed¹⁰ he hear us not; regia, presume not; celsa senis, despair not.

 

HORTENSIO.

Madam, ’tis now in tune.

 

LUCENTIO.

All but the base.

 

HORTENSIO.

The base is right; ’tis the base knave¹¹ that jars.

[Aside] How fiery¹² and forward our pedant is!

Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love:

Pedascule, I’ll watch you better yet.

 

BIANCA.

In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.

 

LUCENTIO.

Mistrust it not; for sure, Æacides

Was Ajax, call’d so from his grandfather.

 

BIANCA.

I must believe my master; else, I promise you,

I should be arguing still upon that doubt;

But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.

Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,

That I have been thus pleasant with you both.

 

HORTENSIO.

[To Lucentio] You may go walk and give me leave a while;

My lessons make no music in three parts.

 

LUCENTIO.

Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,

[Aside] And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv’d,

Our fine musician groweth amorous¹³.

 

HORTENSIO.

Madam, before you touch the instrument,

To learn the order of my fingering,

I must begin with rudiments¹⁴ of art;

To teach you gamut¹⁵ in a briefer sort,

More pleasant, pithy¹⁶, and effectual,

Than hath been taught by any of my trade:

And there it is in writing, fairly drawn¹⁷.

 

BIANCA.

Why, I am past my gamut long ago.

 

HORTENSIO.

Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.

 

BIANCA.

Gamut I am, the ground of all accord,

A re, to plead Hortensio’s passion;

B mi, Bianca, take him for thy lord,

C fa ut, that loves with all affection:

D sol re, one clef, two notes have I

E la mi, show pity or I die.

Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not:

Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice,

To change true rules for odd inventions.

 

Enter a Servant.

 

SERVANT.

Mistress, your father prays you leave your books,

And help to dress your sister’s chamber¹⁸ up:

You know tomorrow is the wedding-day.

 

BIANCA.

Farewell, sweet masters, both: I must be gone.

 

[Exeunt Bianca and Servant.]

 

LUCENTIO.

Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.

 

[Exit.]

 

HORTENSIO.

But I have cause to pry¹⁹ into this pedant:

Methinks he looks as though he were in love.

Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble²⁰

To cast thy wand’ring eyes on every stale,

Seize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,

Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing.

 

[Exit.]

 

1 wrangling   

v.争吵，争论，口角( wrangle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The two sides have spent most of their time wrangling over procedural problems. 双方大部分时间都在围绕程序问题争论不休。 来自辞典例句
• The children were wrangling (with each other) over the new toy. 孩子为新玩具（互相）争吵。 来自辞典例句

2 pedant   

n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人

参考例句：

• He's a bit of a pedant.这人有点迂。
• A man of talent is one thing,and a pedant another.有才能的人和卖弄学问的人是不一样的。

3 prerogative   

n.特权

参考例句：

• It is within his prerogative to do so.他是有权这样做的。
• Making such decisions is not the sole prerogative of managers.作这类决定并不是管理者的专有特权。

4 preposterous   

adj.荒谬的，可笑的

参考例句：

• The whole idea was preposterous.整个想法都荒唐透顶。
• It would be preposterous to shovel coal with a teaspoon.用茶匙铲煤是荒谬的。

5 ass   

n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人

参考例句：

• He is not an ass as they make him.他不象大家猜想的那样笨。
• An ass endures his burden but not more than his burden.驴能负重但不能超过它能力所负担的。

6 strife   

n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争

参考例句：

• We do not intend to be drawn into the internal strife.我们不想卷入内乱之中。
• Money is a major cause of strife in many marriages.金钱是造成很多婚姻不和的一个主要原因。

7 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

8 construe   

v.翻译，解释

参考例句：

• He had tried to construe a passage from Homer.他曾尝试注释荷马著作的一段文字。
• You can construe what he said in a number of different ways.他的话可以有好几种解释。

9 beguile   

vt.欺骗，消遣

参考例句：

• They are playing cards to beguile the time.他们在打牌以消磨时间。
• He used his newspapers to beguile the readers into buying shares in his company.他利用他的报纸诱骗读者买他公司的股票。

10 heed   

v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心

参考例句：

• You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
• For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。

11 knave   

n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克

参考例句：

• Better be a fool than a knave.宁做傻瓜，不做无赖。
• Once a knave,ever a knave.一次成无赖，永远是无赖。

12 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

13 amorous   

adj.多情的；有关爱情的

参考例句：

• They exchanged amorous glances and clearly made known their passions.二人眉来眼去，以目传情。
• She gave him an amorous look.她脉脉含情的看他一眼。

14 rudiments   

n.基础知识，入门

参考例句：

• He has just learned the rudiments of Chinese. 他学汉语刚刚入门。
• You do not seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. 你似乎连农业上的一点最起码的常识也没有。

15 gamut   

n.全音阶，(一领域的)全部知识

参考例句：

• The exhibition runs the whole gamut of artistic styles.这次展览包括了所有艺术风格的作品。
• This poem runs the gamut of emotions from despair to joy.这首诗展现了从绝望到喜悦的感情历程。

16 pithy   

adj.(讲话或文章)简练的

参考例句：

• Many of them made a point of praising the film's pithy dialogue.他们中很多人特别赞扬了影片精炼的对白。
• His pithy comments knocked the bottom out of my argument.他精辟的评论驳倒了我的论点。

17 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

18 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

19 pry   

vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起)

参考例句：

• He's always ready to pry into other people's business.他总爱探听别人的事。
• We use an iron bar to pry open the box.我们用铁棍撬开箱子。

20 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。