What is Beauty?- 'For tis'mind that makes the body rich'

Hello Internet!

I finished my first Bard play of the 'Read-everything-Shakespeare-athon'....The Taming of the Shrew, and it has got me musing about beauty and attraction.

It might be worth mentioning at this point that I got described as Grace Kelly plus two stone this week (I’m sure it was meant as a compliment but was not received so!)And it might have fueled a little angst towards the ridiculously beautiful and slender....

Princess Grace of Monaco

I mean what’s the big deal with Bianca? She sounds utterly beautiful and in comparison to her sister (renowned for her 'Scolding tongue’) a calm and sweet type, but to cause such a stir to all the fellas?

I think maybe the whirlwind of 'fuss' caused could be as a result of general male ego, of which I feel The Taming of the Shrew has masses, for example:

Act1: Scene 2: The scene where the blokes plot upon Bianca and Katharina, and Petruchio takes it upon himself to woo the wildcat.

Maybe the fact that Bianca is so unattainable (through the rule put upon her by her father, that she can only marry when her sister does) is the reason for her attraction…don’t we all want what we can’t have? 

Ok so…… my favorite part of the whole play is the Argument between Katharina, and Petruchio in Act 2: Scene 1. It’s full of wit and chemistry, the words are so delicious and sharp I feel like I could just eat them off the page…undoubtedly achieving burnt lips! It would almost be fitting for the two of them to just jump straight into bed there and then.

PETRUCHIO
    Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.

KATHARINA
    If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO
    My remedy is then, to pluck it out.

KATHARINA
    Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,

PETRUCHIO
    Who knows not where a wasp does
    wear his sting? In his tail.

KATHARINA
    In his tongue.

PETRUCHIO
    Whose tongue?

KATHARINA
    Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.

PETRUCHIO
    What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,
    Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

KATHARINA
    That I'll try.
    She strikes him

PETRUCHIO
    I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.

KATHARINA
    So may you lose your arms:
    If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
    And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

Shakespeare Retold offering of this fabulous argument...

This is the Kate I adore, so its no surprise that as she is tamed (if indeed she is tamed? I’m not convinced) I feel a little deflated by the narrative and hope with each scene to see a little more of the fire she breathes at the start. It appears in and out of Petruchio’s torment particularly the parts in which he makes her fast…it’s a shame she couldn’t just nip to the Spar for a sausage roll…

Sausage rolls aside…is Kate ever really tamed? The Bard keeps us guessing right up until the very last min, or rather the very last of Kate’s speeches…

Act5: Scene 2

KATHARINA

    Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
    And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
    To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
    It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
    Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
    And in no sense is meet or amiable.
    A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
    Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
    And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
    Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
    Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
    Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
    And for thy maintenance commits his body
    To painful labour both by sea and land,
    To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
    Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
    And craves no other tribute at thy hands
    But love, fair looks and true obedience;
    Too little payment for so great a debt.
    Such duty as the subject owes the prince
    Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
    And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
    And not obedient to his honest will,
    What is she but a foul contending rebel
    And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
    I am ashamed that women are so simple
    To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
    Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
    When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
    Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
    Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
    But that our soft conditions and our hearts
    Should well agree with our external parts?
    Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
    My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
    My heart as great, my reason haply more,
    To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
    But now I see our lances are but straws,
    Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
    That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
    Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
    And place your hands below your husband's foot:
    In token of which duty, if he please,
    My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

(Note to self – add Kate to list of characters I want to play before I kick the bucket!)

I like to think having read The Taming of the Shrew that Kate is a very intelligent woman and having weighed up her situation (in the Bards time the feminist movement was a dream of the far far far far….FAR future) decides upon accepting the man she has grown to love and humoring him in front of his friends. After all aren’t all relationships based on compromise? Maybe Kate and Petruchio are the Shakespearean answer to Katy Perry and Russell Brand …they shouldn’t work but they some how they do!  

So….to round up (I think I have probably babbled quite enough!) I feel like aside of the undertone of Elizabethan patriarchal fears of strong rebellious woman, The Taming of the Shrew has endearing characters and a rolling about giggle factor that rivals any classic ‘Only Fool and Horses’ (ok…maybe not the one where Del Boy falls through the bar). I really enjoyed it….

Thank you William Shakespeare …play number one read and enjoyed!

Peace out

Sam

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