לפני 19 שנים. 6 באוקטובר 2005 בשעה 15:58
Ok then, it's true, Shakespeare already wrote everything and we have just been jerking off for the last few centuries.
But enjoying it I suppose.
I have always liked Taming of the Shrew, and certainly in part for its D/s qualities.
So it came about that there was a partner making the journey with me on the road to submission - let's leave labels and definitions aside.
Progress was good, very good, though certainly we confronted obstacles
Sometimes certain walls and blocks are clung to, even when we want to discard them they are what we know.
During one session I felt I was not getting through as deep as I wanted and moved to a lovely paddle that seems to cause deep body and spiritual reverberations
My partner, who does not cry and only barely whimpers occasionally (she likes to tough things out)
begins to whimper.
I have a small brainstorm.
"Tell me you like this"
My partner is a very truthful girl - which is good - and so in the joint spirit of truth and toughing it out, she declines to say she likes this.
I reach over to the bookshelf and yank out the volume of Shakespeare's comedies, leaf through it and begin to read:
"SCENE V. A public road.
Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Servants
PETRUCHIO
Come on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!
KATHARINA
The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.
PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.
KATHARINA
I know it is the sun that shines so bright.
PETRUCHIO
Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father's house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!
HORTENSIO
Say as he says, or we shall never go.
KATHARINA
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon.
KATHARINA
I know it is the moon.
PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.
KATHARINA
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 named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.
"
I then go back to the paddle and again hear whimpering, a bit more urgent this time
After a time I say again:
"Tell me you like this"
Again no response,
Again I read the passage and so on.
After five readings neither my voice nor my arm were tired but something had changed.
Through a veil of two or three tears (which for this girl are equivalent toan ocean of tears for most others)
I hear an affirmative: " Yes I like this"
A small but significant catharsis...
Followed by a hug and gentle kiss.
I read from the last act:
Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow
Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot.
Widow
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!
BIANCA
Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?
LUCENTIO
I would your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.
BIANCA
The more fool you, for laying on my duty.
PETRUCHIO
Katharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.
Widow
Come, come, you're mocking: we will have no telling.
PETRUCHIO
Come on, I say; and first begin with her.
Widow
She shall not.
PETRUCHIO
I say she shall: and first begin with her.
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.
PETRUCHIO
Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.
And again I put action to words and we kiss.
And we both know that something fundamental has changed, she is not untruthful but she has found a new truth.
Good old Will.
