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The Taming of the
Shrew: Grumio
Shakespeare and Music
in Three of His Comedies
Shakespeare on Film
(collective paper)
Love´s
Labour's Lost (my part in the collective paper)
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
GRUMIO
I did not choose my character until
last week and I must confess that it was a great surprise to realize that although
practically everybody had already made their choice, Grumio was still
available. Of course he is not one of the protagonists but he really plays a
very important role in The Taming of the Shrew.
On the one hand he is with his
master Petruchio all over the course of the play, as a privileged witness, from
that very instant in which the latter explains to his friend Hortensio that he
is looking for a rich wife until the very moment when he has completely tamed
her.
On the other hand, and this is more
important, he plays the lead in some of the most humorous moments of the play.
There is another version, titled The Taming of a Shrew and printed in Quarto
format in 1594, where we can find a character called 'Sander', 'Saunder' o
'Saunders', who carries out the same function as Grumio, that's to say, being a
clown (see Oliver). If we take into account that The Taming of the Shrew is a
comedy we will have to agree in the importance of his role.
Grumio is very well defined by
Hortensio as Petruchio's "ancient, trusty, pleasant servant" and
declares himself as his "pledge" (Act I Scene II, 43), after having
called him his "old friend Grumio" (Act I Scene II, 21). In spite of
the long time that Grumio has been with Petruchio (probably all his master's
life) or precisely because of that, the relation between them shows a clearly
marked separation, with the master playing a superior role above the servant,
who has to suffer his authority.
Over the course of the play Grumio is addressed by his master as sirrah,
villain, foolish knave, peasant swain, rascal or whoreson malt-horse drudge.
Grumio's role is far different from Tranio's, Lucentio's clever servant, who is
able to exchanging roles with his master without anybody realizing the
deception. It is not the case with Grumio, whose main function in the play is to
make us laugh, what he fulfils beautifully every time he appears on stage.
We first see him at he beginning of
Act 1 Scene 2, when he and his master are before Hortensio's house and
Petruchio asks him to knock at his friend's door. We witness a hilarious scene
as Grumio misunderstands Petruchio's orders and believes that his master has
gone mad. Shakespeare plays with the words in such a way that Grumio thinks
that Petruchio is asking him to be knocked at, when he really means to knock at
Hortensio's gate (appendix 1). For purposes of laugh Grumio both misunderstands
Petruchio's words and confuses his own, as when he asks: "Knock, sir? Whom
should I knock? Is there any man has rebused your worship?" Although maybe
he is just conflating the two words, abused and rebuked, to coin a new one.
The scene (Act 4 Scene 3) when
Grumio taunts Kate by seeming to offer food (appendix 2) is equally funny. In
spite of Kate's requests he is forced to put her off for fear of Petruchio,
becoming in this way his accomplice in her taming. Anyway, at the end it's not
his master but his mistress who beats him.
Another clownish scene is maintained
between Grumio and the tailor who comes to Petruchio's country house to deliver
Kate's gown for the wedding. As a part of Petruchio's strategy to tame Kate, Grumio becomes the scapegoat
and finishes making us laugh by misunderstanding again Petruchio's words as if
he really meant to wear his mistress' gown.
The moment when Grumio is telling
Curtis that during their travel to Petruchio's country house, Kate's horse had
fallen and she was under the animal, is worth mentioning. Shakespeare uses
Grumio's words to make us see Kate's change (Appendix 4). She is more worried
about Grumio than about herself and she even tries to protect his husband's
servants from his anger.
The importance of this fool as an
essential element in the success of the play seems undeniable. We could say
that he is a sort of great
entertainer who is able to cope with all the abuses and rebukes while getting
us to keep a broad smile over our faces. A great job.
Appendix 1
ACT I SCENE II. Padua. Before HORTENSIO'S
house.
Enter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO
PETRUCHIO
Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua, but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio; knock, I say.
GRUMIO
Knock, sir! whom should I knock? is there man
has
rebused your worship?
PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.
GRUMIO
Knock you here, sir! why, sir, what am I, sir,
that
I should knock you here, sir?
PETRUCHIO
Villain, I say, knock me at this gate
And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's
pate.
GRUMIO
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock
you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.
PETRUCHIO
Will it not be?
Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock, I'll ring
it;
I'll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.
He wrings him by the ears
GRUMIO
Help, masters, help! my master is mad.
PETRUCHIO
Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!
Appendix 2
Act IV SCENE III. A room in PETRUCHIO'S house.
Enter KATHARINA and GRUMIO
GRUMIO
No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.
KATHARINA
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears:
What, did he marry me to famish me?
Beggars, that come unto my father's door,
Upon entreaty have a present aims;
If not, elsewhere they meet with charity:
But I, who never knew how to entreat,
Nor never needed that I should entreat,
Am starved for meat, giddy for lack of sleep,
With oath kept waking and with brawling fed:
And that which spites me more than all these
wants,
He does it under name of perfect love;
As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,
'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.
I prithee go and get me some repast;
I care not what, so it be wholesome food.
GRUMIO
What say you to a neat's foot?
KATHARINA
'Tis passing good: I prithee let me have it.
GRUMIO
I fear it is too choleric a meat.
How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?
KATHARINA
I like it well: good Grumio, fetch it me.
GRUMIO
I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.
What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?
KATHARINA
A dish that I do love to feed upon.
GRUMIO
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.
KATHARINA
Why then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.
GRUMIO
Nay then, I will not: you shall have the
mustard,
Or else you get no beef of Grumio.
KATHARINA
Then both, or one, or any thing thou wilt.
GRUMIO
Why then, the mustard without the beef.
KATHARINA
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,
Beats him
That feed'st me with the very name of meat:
Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you,
That triumph thus upon my misery!
Go, get thee gone, I say.
Appendix 3
Act IV SCENE III. A room in PETRUCHIO'S house.
…
Tailor
Your worship is deceived; the gown is made
Just as my master had direction:
Grumio gave order how it should be done.
GRUMIO
I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.
Tailor
But how did you desire it should be made?
GRUMIO
Marry, sir, with needle and thread.
Tailor
But did you not request to have it cut?
GRUMIO
Thou hast faced many things.
Tailor
I have.
GRUMIO
Face not me: thou hast braved many men; brave
not
me; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say
unto
thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown; but I
did
not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.
Tailor
Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify
PETRUCHIO
Read it.
GRUMIO
The note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.
Tailor
[Reads] 'Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown:'
GRUMIO
Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew
me in
the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a
bottom
of brown thread: I said a gown.
PETRUCHIO
Proceed.
Tailor
[Reads] 'With a small compassed cape:'
GRUMIO
I confess the cape.
Tailor
[Reads] 'With a trunk sleeve:'
GRUMIO
I confess two sleeves.
Tailor
[Reads] 'The sleeves curiously cut.'
PETRUCHIO
Ay, there's the villany.
GRUMIO
Error i' the bill, sir; error i' the bill.
I commanded the sleeves should be cut out and
sewed up again; and that I'll prove upon thee,
though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.
Tailor
This is true that I say: an I had thee
in place where, thou shouldst know it.
GRUMIO
I am for thee straight: take thou the
bill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.
HORTENSIO
God-a-mercy, Grumio! then he shall have no
odds.
PETRUCHIO
Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.
GRUMIO
You are i' the right, sir: 'tis for my
mistress.
PETRUCHIO
Go, take it up unto thy master's use.
GRUMIO
Villain, not for thy life: take up my mistress'
gown for thy master's use!
PETRUCHIO
Why, sir, what's your conceit in that?
GRUMIO
O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think
for:
Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use!
O, fie, fie, fie!
Appendix 4
GRUMIO
Tell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed
me,
thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and
she
under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in
how
miry a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left
her
with the horse upon her, how he beat me because
her horse stumbled, how she waded through the
dirt
to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she
prayed,
that never prayed before, how I cried, how the
horses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how
I
lost my crupper, with many things of worthy
memory,
which now shall die in oblivion and thou return
unexperienced to thy grave.
CURTIS
By this reckoning he is more shrew than she.
Works Cited
Oliver, H. J., ed. The Taming of the
Shrew. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998. Questia. 23 Nov. 2006
<http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=62294967>.
Note: All the fragments of the play have been
taken from the standard (first folio) text, available online at <http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/taming_shrew/index.html>.
Academic year 2006/2007
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Juan Manuel Ruano Silvano
ruasi@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press