"_Soud, soud, soud, soud!_"--In the _Taming of the Shrew_, Act IV. Sc.
1., Petruchio, on arriving at his house, says to his bride:
"Sit down, Kate, and welcome. Soud, soud, soud soud!"
The word _soud_ puzzles the commentators.
Johnson takes it for _soot_ or _sooth_, sweet. Mason supposes it to
denote the humming of a tune, or an ejaculation, for which it is not
necessary to find out a meaning. Malone conjectures it to be a word
coined to express the noise made by a person heated and fatigued.
This seems a proper subject for a Query.