One of my favorite plays is “The Taming of the Shrew,” which uniquely begins with the “Induction” involving an inebriated beggar who becomes the brunt of an English lord’s prank.
The lord tries to makes Christopher Sly, who awakes out of a drunken stupor, think that he is of nobility. He of course remembers who he is and points out that his present profession is “a tinker.” The lord and his servants insist to him that his recollections are but madness.
“The Taming of the Shrew” is a play within a play. The Induction encapsulates “The Taming of the Shrew’s” five acts. Why did Shakespeare include the Induction? For one, the prank on Sly reinforces a theme of the play: a person’s environment and the way people treat him can determine behavior; the protagonist in the main plot illustrates this.
The Induction also reinforces the husband and wife theme. When the servants tell Sly that he has a wife he immediately gives in to being the lord that they’ve been telling him he is. This week’s quiz has some words about this comedy.
1. Which one is not a synonym of shrewish (SHREW-ish)?
A. petulant
B. rapprochement-like
C. ill-tempered
D. irritable
E. intractable
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2. The first line, “I’ll pheeze you, in faith” means
A. I’ll love you, I promise.
B. I’ll fix you, I swear.
C. I fantasize about you.
D. I’ll please you even if it’s the last thing I do.
Sly says this to the hostess in front of an alehouse on a heath.
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3. This is what the hostess calls Sly in the play’s second line:
A. drunkard
B. rogue
C. shrew
D. curmudgeon
E. pedant
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4. Which one is the shrew?
A. Bianca
B. the hostess
C. Katherina
D. Baptista
Answers are B, B, B, C. Here’s one more that came from Stevie Davies’ study of “The Taming of the Shrew.”
5. “woeman” (WOE-man)
A. strong woman
B. a metaphor for the tongue
C. literally woe-to-man from a period before spelling had been standardized
D. None of the above
In her chapter titled “The Tongue of Woman,” Davies wrote, “One tongue, John Milton used to say jovially in the hearing of his daughters, was enough for a woeman.” Davies says that Milton invariably selected the prejudicial woeman in relation to the fatal persuasion of Adam by Eve. No. 5- C.
Editor’s Note: Dr. Don Rodney Vaughan is the pastor of Mt. Vernon Baptist Church near Eupora and is on the faculty of East Mississippi Community College, Golden Triangle Campus. Contact him at dvaughan@eastms.edu.
