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Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Shakespeare
KATHERINA. I know it is the moon.
PETRUCHIO. Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.
KATHERINA. Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,
And so it shall be so for Katherine.
HORTENSIO. Petruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.
PETRUCHIO. Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,
And not unluckily against the bias.
But, soft! Company is coming here.
Enter VINCENTIO
[To VINCENTIO] Good-morrow, gentle mistress; where away?
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Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Such war of white and red within her cheeks!
What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty
As those two eyes become that heavenly face?
Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.
HORTENSIO. 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.
KATHERINA. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man whom favourable stars
Allots thee for his lovely bed-fellow.
PETRUCHIO. Why, how now, Kate, I hope thou art not mad!
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered,
And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.
KATHERINA. Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green;
Now I perceive thou art a reverend father.
Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.