Today’s Totally Random
Lines
Did ever Dian so become a grove,
As Kate this chamber with her princely
gait?
O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;
And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!
Petruchio
The Taming of the Shrew Act II, Scene i, Line 252
This is Petruchio
at his first meeting of Kate (the titular shrew). Everyone else thinks Kate is
the worst, the shrewest woman in town. They don’t really talk so much about her
appearance as they do her temperament, so I don’t know what they think of her
looks. Petruchio meets her and immediately decides that she is beautiful in and
out. In this first scene together they go back and forth quite a lot, he
telling her how beautiful she is, and she telling him that he’s crazy.
This is a bit of a tough play for 2026, because Petruchio dominates, and ultimately can be said to tame, Kate. Still, I think there’s more to it than meets the eye. In the same way that The Merchant of Venice can be viewed as an antisemitic play, this one can be viewed as wholly misogynistic; but I think both assumptions are too simplistic and basically wrong. On the other hand, what do I know.
Wait, was that a rhetorical question?
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