course, and the Emperor Augustus, a very moral man, was outraged at its publication. It was one of the reasons why Ovid was banished to a far corner of the Empire a few years later.
It is undoubtedly The Art of Love of which Tranio is thinking, and he is urging Lucentio not to be so wrapped up in his studies as to forget to have a little fun now and then.
... hear Minerva speak
Tranio need not have worried. Lucentio is, actually, all on the side of Ovid too, and something comes up at once to prove it.
A rich merchant of Padua, Baptista, comes on the scene with his two daughters, Katherina (or, for short, Kate) and Bianca. Trailing him are two other men also, the aged Gremio and the younger Hortensio.
Both Gremio and Hortensio are clamoring for the hand of Bianca, the younger daughter, a gentle girl, who stands with eyes cast down and rarely speaks. (Her very name means "white," as though to emphasize her color-lessness.)
Baptista will have none of this, however. He will not allow Bianca to marry until the elder sister, Kate, is married. The two suitors can have their chance at her. If one marries her the other may woo Bianca.
But it turns out at once that Kate is a furious shrew, whose every word is a threat, whose eyes flash fire, and who is ready at a moment's notice to commit mayhem. The two suitors climb over each other in an attempt to get away from her.
Tranio and Lucentio are watching from the sidelines. Tranio is amazed at the shrewishness of Kate, but Lucentio has eyes only for the gentle Bianca. When Bianca humbly accepts her father's delay of her marriage, Lucentio is ravished with her modest words. He says to Tranio:
Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak.
- Act I, scene i, line 84
Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom (her very name may be related to mens, meaning "mind") and is the analogue of the Greek Athena.
... love-in-idleness
Baptista and his daughters go off, but not till after the father mentions in passing that he is looking for a music teacher for Bianca.
Gremio and Hortensio look after them in chagrin and decide that the only way they can manage to pursue their suit of Bianca is to find some madman, somehow, who will be willing to marry Katherina. After all, Baptista is enormously rich, so that Katherina (considering her shrewishness and the difficulty of getting rid of her) would command a huge dowry.
They leave too, and Lucentio comes out of his wide-eyed trance to find himself deeply in love at first sight with Bianca. He says to Tranio:
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love-in-idleness.
- Act I, scene i, lines 150-51
Love-in-idleness is the pansy, which was thought in Elizabethan nature folklore to have the effect of a love potion (see page I-34). Lucentio decides to be utterly frank about his feelings and plans, for he says to Tranio:
Thou art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was,
- Act I, scene i, lines 153-54
Anna was the sister of Dido (see page I-20) and her confidante. Lucentio goes on to say:
... / saw sweet beauty in her face,
Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand
When with his knees he kissed the Cretan strand.
- Act I, scene i, lines 166-70
Agenor was a mythical king of Tyre and his daughter was Europa, for whose sake Zeus (Jupiter, or Jove) turned himself into a bull and with her swam to Crete (see page I-44).
Love gives Lucentio an idea. He will impersonate a schoolmaster and get the post teaching Bianca. While he is doing this, his servant, Tranio, can pretend to be Lucentio, performing the educational and social tasks that the real Lucentio ought to be doing (and concerning which his father, Vincentio, back in Pisa, will expect to hear of now and then).
... Would 'twere done
At the end of the first scene, attention is suddenly drawn to Christopher Sly, the tinker, sitting in the balcony. He is dreadfully bored, but doesn't like to say so. When the page, who is pretending to be his wife, asks how he likes it, he says:
'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady.
Would 'twere done!
- Act I, scene i, lines 252-53
But Christopher Sly is done, for we hear no more of him ever. From this point on, the play within a play is the