Study Questions

1. Why does Grumio arrive ahead of Petruchio and Kate?

2. How was their journey from Padua?

3. What do Kate and Petruchio eat when they arrive?

4. Why does Petruchio reject the mutton?

5. What plan does Petruchio concoct to tame Kate after he rejects their meal?

6. Which Ovidian text does Lucentio name to Bianca?

7. Why does Tranio swear not to court Bianca?

8. What is the taming school to which Tranio refers?

9. Why is origin of the pedant important to Tranio?

10. Why does the pedant offer to play the part of Vincentio while in Padua?

Answers

1. He has been sent ahead to start a fire and to prepare servants to meet Petruchio in a park.

2. Grumio’s account suggests it was a miserable, cold trip with Kate falling down with her horse into mud.

3. Although a large meal is served, Petruchio sends the entire meal back to the kitchen, and they eat nothing.

4. He claims that it is burnt.

5. Petruchio plans to deny Katharina sleep and to harrass her until she submits to his will.

6. The Art to Love, more commonly translated as the Art of Love, is the text.

7. Ostensibly, Tranio forswears Bianca because Hortensio has proven her to be attached to Cambio. But since this was Tranio’s original plan, he is presumably happy to stop pretending to court Bianca.

8. Tranio merely jokes about Petruchio demonstrating the way to make a wife obey her husband.

9. The actual origin of the pedant is irrelevant, for Tranio could have used any town in his story to fool the pedant.

10. Tranio invents a story that the pedant will be executed unless he disguises his true identity as a Mantuan.