Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/344

314 And say she uttereth piercing eloquence: If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks, As tho' she bid me stay by her a week; If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day, When I shall ask the banns, and when be married?"

He accordingly gains her consent to the match, by telling her father that he has got it; disappoints her by not returning at the time he has promised to wed her, and when he returns, creates no small consternation by the oddity of his dress and equipage. This however is nothing to the astonishment excited by his mad-brained behaviour at the marriage. Here is the account of it by an eye-witness:—

"Gremlo. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool to him: I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio; when the priest Should ask if Katherine should be his wife? Ay, by gogs woons, quoth he; and swore so loud, That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book; And as he stooped again to take it up, This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff, That down fell priest and book, and book and priest. Now take them up, quoth he, if any list. Tranio. What said the wench when he rose up again? Gremio. Trembled and shook; for why, he stamp'd and swore, As if the vicar meant to cozen him. But after many ceremonies done, He calls for wine; a health, quoth he; as if He'ad been aboard carousing with his mates After a storm; quaft off the muscadel,