Study Questions
1. What does Cambio recite to Bianca?

2. Assess Lucentio’s control of Latin.

3. What lesson does Hortensio give to Bianca?

4. Why does Hortensio lose interest so suddenly in Bianca?

5. Why is Kate upset on her wedding day?

6. Why does Petruchio arrive underdressed for his own marriage?

7. What happens during the ceremony?

8. Why does Petruchio insist that he must leave immediately?

9. To which poet does Shakespeare allude in Petruchio’s speech about a wife’s duty to her husband?

10. How do the guests react to the newlyweds’ early departure?

Answers
1. He recites a few lines from Ovid’s epistolary poem the Heroides.

2. We cannot judge his skill with Latin. Lucentio and Bianca don’t try to translate the lines they read.

3. As the musician Lito, Hortensio devises a message, much like that of Lucentio, based upon the arpeggios of the scales. But Bianca notices a minor error in its beginning and rejects it.

4. Bianca has just rejected him, and she begins to show favoritism to the younger schoolmaster.

5. Petruchio fails to show up at the appointed time.

6. He is presumably trying to humiliate Kate, whom he perceives to be spoiled.

7. We learn from Gremio that Petruchio has struck the priest for fumbling the Bible, and that he has given Kate a roaring kiss.

8. He never provides a full explanation.

9. By juxtaposing the words field and barn, Shakespeare alludes to Richard Barnfield, whose Affectionate Shephard had just been published the year of Shrew’s first known performance. His sonnets probably circulated among the nobility and close friends, who perhaps included Shakespeare.

10. After entreating Petruchio to stay for the banquet, they remain to enjoy the meal.