Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.

Padua

Padua

By William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

LUCENTIO.Tranio, since, for the great desire I had

To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,

I am arriv’d for fruitful Lombardy,

The pleasant garden of great Italy;

And, by my father’s love and leave, am arm’d

With his good will, and thy good company,

My trusty servant, well approv’d in all;

Here let us breathe, and haply institute

A course of learning, and ingenious studies.—

Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,

Gave me my being; and my father first,

A merchant of great traffic through the world,

Vincentio come of the Bentivolii.

Lucentio his son, brought up in Florence,

It shall become, to serve all hopes conceiv’d,

To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.

And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,

Virtue and that part of philosophy

Will I apply, that treats of happiness

By virtue ’specially to be achiev’d.

Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left,

And am to Padua come: as he that leaves

A shallow plash, to plunge him in the deep,

And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

TRANIO.Mi perdonate, gentle master mine,

I am in all affected as yourself.

Glad that you thus continue your resolve,

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.

Only, good master, while we do admire

This virtue, and this moral discipline,

Let ’s be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray;

Or so devote to Aristotle’s Ethics,

As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur’d.

Balke logic with acquaintance that you have,

And practise rhetoric in your common talk;

Music and poesy use to quicken you;

The mathematics, and the metaphysics,

Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en.—

In brief, sir, study what you most affect.