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When they entered, Baptista welcomed them to the wedding feast, and there was present also another newly married pair.

Lucentio, Bianca’s husband, and Hortensio, the other new married man, could not forbear sly jests, which seemed to hint at the shrewish disposition of Petruchio’s wife, and these fond bridegrooms seemed highly pleased with the mild tempers of the ladies they had chosen, laughing at Petruchio for his less fortunate choice. Petruchio took little notice of their jokes till the ladies were retired after dinner, and then he perceived Baptista himself joined in the laugh against him: for when Petruchio affirmed that his wife would prove more obedient than theirs, the father of Katharine said, “Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio, I fear you have got the veriest shrew of all.” “Well,” said Petruchio, “I say no, and therefore for assurance that I speak the truth, let us each one send for his wife, and he whose wife is most obedient to come at first when she is sent for, shall win a wager which we will propose.” To this the other two husbands willingly consented, for they were quite confident that their gentle wives would prove more obedient than the headstrong Katharine; and they proposed a wager of twenty crowns, but Petruchio merrily said, he would lay as much as that upon his hawk or hound, but twenty times as much upon his wife. Lucentio and Hortensio raised the wager to a hundred crowns, and Lucentio first sent his servant to desire Bianca would come to him. But the servant returned, and said, “Sir, my mistress sends you word she is busy and cannot come.”–“How,” said Petruchio, “does she say she is busy and cannot come? Is that an answer for a wife?” Then they laughed at him, and said, it would be well if Katharine did not send him a worse answer. And now it was Hortensio’s turn to send for his wife; and he said to his servant, “Go, and entreat my wife to come to me.” “Oh ho! entreat her!” said Petruchio. “Nay, then, she needs must come.”–“I am afraid, sir,” said Hortensio, “your wife will not be entreated.” But presently this civil husband looked a little blank, when the servant returned without his mistress; and he said to him, “How now! Where is my wife?”–“Sir,” said the servant, “my mistress says, you have some goodly jest in hand, and therefore she will not come. She bids you come to her.”–“Worse and worse!” said Petruchio; and then he sent his servant, saying, “Sirrah, go to your mistress, and tell her I command her to come to me.” The company had scarcely time to think she would not obey this summons, when Baptista, all in amaze, exclaimed, “Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharine!” and she entered, saying meekly to Petruchio, “What is your will, sir, that you send for me?”–“Where is your sister and Hortensio’s wife?” said he. Katharine replied, “They sit conferring by the parlour fire.”–“Go, fetch them hither!” said Petruchio. Away went Katharine without reply to perform her husband’s command. “Here is a wonder,” said Lucentio, “if you talk of a wonder.”–“And so it is,” said Hortensio; “I marvel what it bodes.”–“Marry, peace it bodes,” said Petruchio, “and love, and quiet life, and right supremacy; and, to be short, everything that is sweet and happy.” Katharine’s father, overjoyed to see this reformation in his daughter, said, “Now, fair befall thee, son Petruchio! you have won the wager, and I will add another twenty thousand crowns to her dowry, as if she were another daughter, for she is changed as if she had never been.”–“Nay,” said Petruchio, “I will win the wager better yet, and show more signs of her new-built virtue and obedience.” Katharine now entering with the two ladies, he continued, “See where she comes, and brings your froward wives as prisoners to her womanly persuasion. Katharine, that cap of yours does not become you; off with that bauble, and throw it under foot.” Katharine instantly took off her cap, and threw it down. “Lord!” said Hortensio’s wife, “may I never have a cause to sigh till I am brought to such a silly pass!” And Bianca, she too said, “Fie, what foolish duty call you this?” On this Bianca’s husband said to her, “I wish your duty were as foolish too! The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca, has cost me a hundred crowns since dinner-time.”–“The more fool you,” said Bianca, “for laying on my duty.”–“Katharine,” said Petruchio, “I charge you tell these headstrong women what duty they owe their lords and husbands.” And to the wonder of all present, the reformed shrewish lady spoke as eloquently in praise of the wife-like duty of obedience, as she had practised it implicitly in a ready submission to Petruchio’s will. And Katharine once more became famous in Padua, not as heretofore, as Katharine the Shrew, but as Katharine the most obedient and duteous wife in Padua.