Chapter XXXIII: Act IV

SC. 1. "Out, _out_ you rogue! you pluck my foot awry."

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"'Tis burnt, and so is all the meat _that's here_."

I had also conjectured, like Capell, 'all _the rest of_.'

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SC. 2. "Is it possible, friend Licio, that [mistress] Bianca."

Pope also made this metric correction. _Master_ and _Mistress_ do not occur in this play as titles.

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"Never to marry with her, though she would entreat _me_."

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"Would all the world but he had quite foresworn _her_."

Rowe also added _her_.

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"An ancient angel coming down the hill."

If 'angel' be right, it must mean that he was an angel of deliverance to them. Singer and Dyce quote from Cotgrave's Dictionary "_Angelot à la grosse escaille_. _An old Angel_, and by metaphor a fellow of the old, sound, honest, and worthy stamp." But how could Biondello know his character? Some read _engle_, properly _ingle_; but this is rather, comrade, bosom-friend. In Gascoigne's Supposes, from which this part of the play is taken, he is termed "good soul," and it may be that the poet's word here was _uncle_--the conjecture also of a Mr. Bubier, in the Cambridge Edition--a term used of elderly persons. (See Index _s. v._ Nuncle.) Just afterwards he is said to be "surely like a father" and (iv. 5) Katherine says to the real Vincentio "Now I perceive thou art a reverend father."

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"Master _he is_ a marcantant or a pedant."

'Marcantant' is the Italian _mercante_, _mercatante_, or _mercadante_. It may be corrupt.

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"And what of him, Tranio?"

As this is so very abrupt and not very clear, we might conjecture an effacement of _will you make_ or something similar.

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"That you are like to Sir Vincentio."

Here, again, the printer has put 'Sir' for _Signior_, and probably added the 'to' to make up the metre.

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"_Come_, go with me to clothe you as becomes you."

The 2nd folio reads 'Go with me, _sir_.'

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SC. 3. "Why then the mustard; _and_ without the beef."

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"I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff _only_."

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SC. 4. "Ay, _ay_, what else? and but I be deceiv'd."

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"'Twere good _that_ he were school'd--Fear you not him."

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"To have him match'd; and if you please to like _it_
No worse than I, upon some agreement, _sir_,
Me shall you find ready and willing _both_
With one consent to have her so bestow'd."

Here is what seems to be a convincing proof of the effacement of the ends of lines in the MS. In the second line the 2nd folio inserted _sir_ in the middle, and in the third it read '_most_ ready and _most_ willing.' Lower down the ends of two lines more have been also effaced.

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"The match is made and all is done;
Your son shall have my daughter, with consent.--
I thank you, sir, where then do you know best."

'Your son' belongs to first line; and as we have had (iii. 2) "And marry sweet Bianca with consent," we might complete the metre by reading 'with _my full_ consent'; but it is more probable, as this page of the MS. appears to have been injured, that the loss was at the end. I read of _me, Baptista_, as (v. 1) we have "mine only son and heir to the lands of _me, signior Vincentio_." In the next line 'know' is most probably a mere printer's error. I have in my Edition, given _hold_, the reading of Collier's folio; but I think now that the right word is _trow_, which occurs more than once in Shakespeare in the sense of think, and which I find was also the conjecture of Hanmer.

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"I cannot tell; except _while_ they are busied about."

The 1st folio has _expect_, which was rightly corrected in the 2nd. _While_ was properly supplied by Capell.

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"The priest be ready [to come] against you come with your appendix."

Both sense and metre counsel the ejection of 'to come' caused by the following 'you come.'

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"She will be pleased, then wherefore should I doubt _her_?"

The rime evidently requires this addition, made also by Pope.

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SC. 5. "And so it shall be still for Katherine."

'Still' is Ritson's correction of _so_ in the folio.

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"But soft _you_! company is coming here."