(_A Shakspearian Foreshadowing of the Situation in France._)
Prophetic Swan! To picture in advance
The future's pageantry of personage
And scene was thine unique prerogative;
So easily thy creations take the mould
Of aftertimes and characters unborn.
Paris to-day seems Padua, thy fair shrew,
The tricksy termagant, "curst _Katharine_,"
The Paduan _Xantippe_, prickly, perverse,
Yet fascinating vixen, dons to-day
A Gallic guise, and fumes in French, and flounces
In skirts _à la République_.
What said _Gremio?_
"_Your gifts are so good, here's none will hold you!_"
And who may hold the fair Lutetian shrew?
No man, "I wis," is "_half-way to her heart_
_But if he were, doubt not her care should be_
_To comb his noddle with a three-legg'd stool_,
_And paint his face_, _and use him like a fool_."
Here's _Katharine_--but where's _Petruchio?_
"_What! shall I be appointed hours_, _as though_, _belike_
_I knew not what to take_, _and what to leave_, _ha!_"
There speaks the sweet-faced shrew, and takes to-day
What she will leave to-morrow. Yet she shines
In the description of _Hortensio_.
"_With wealth enough_, _and young_, _and beauteous;_
_Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman;_
_Her only fault (and that is faults enough)_
_Is_, _that she is intolerably curst_,
_And shrewd_, _and froward: so beyond all measure_,
_That_, _were my state far worser than it is_,
_I would not wed her for a mine of gold_."
And yet there be good fellows in the world,
'An a man could but haply light on them,
Would take the veriest vixen "_with all faults_."
And many a one hath said, or seemed to say,
"_For I will board her_, _though she chide as loud_
_As thunder_, _when the clouds in autumn crack_."
But with what issue? Like _Hortensio_,
His head is broken by the vixen's lute,
Ere he hath time to teach her government
Of frets or stops, or skilful fingering.
How many, with _Hortensio_, might say,
When asked if he could break her to the lute,--
"_Why_, _no; for she hath broke the lute to me_.
_I did but tell her_, _she mistook her frets_,
_And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering;_
_When with a most impatient devilish spirit_,
'Frets, call you these?' _quoth she:_ 'I'll fume with them:'
_And with that word_, _she struck me on the head_,
_And through the instrument my pate made way;_
_And there I stood amazed for a while_,
_As on a pillory_, _looking through the lute:_
_While she did call me_, _rascal fiddler_,
_And twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms_,
_As she had studied to misuse me so_.
Her masters have not learned true mastery,
And he, her latest would-be teacher, turns
Too prompt and pusillanimous a back
Upon his wilful pupil, beaten off
Quicker than buffeted _Hortensio_
In poor, poltroonish, post-deserting flight;
Leaving the lute whose harmonies his hand
Should have bowed hers to, broken and unstrung,
In the shrew's angry and outrageous grasp:
See how the Gallic _Katharine_ in her fume,
Flouting all mastery, flouncing uncontrolled
In furious anger, flings the shattered lute,
Unstrung, aside, as did the Paduan shrew,
Spurning all government--till _Petruchio_ came!
"_Come_, _come you wasp; i' faith you are too angry!_"
So, in _Petruchio's_ words, say France's friends.
Whilst foes and half-allies look doubtful on,
From the chill Eastward or more genial North,
Wondering what stable faith, in love or hate,
May rest upon such shifting shrewishness.
Where waits _Petruchio_, and will he come
In purple velvet, or in soldier steel,
Or simple, civic, hero-covering cloth,
To tame this _Katharine_ of the Phrygian cap,
And smiling, in the mocking calm of power,
Say of the shrew, like him of Padua:--
"_Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?_
_Have I not in my time heard lion's roar?_
_Have I not heard the sea_, _puff'd up with winds_,
_Rage like an angry boar chafèd with sweat?_
_Have I not heard great ordnance in the field_,
_And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?_
_Have I not in a pitched battle heard_
_Loud 'larums_, _neighing steeds_, _and trumpets' clang?_
_And do you tell me of a woman's tongue;_
_That gives not half so great a blow to th' ear_
_As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?_
_Tush! tush! fear boys with bugbears_.--
_I fear none!_"
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