Week 3: Taming of the Shrew

Petruchio

Why came I hither but to that intent? 

Think you a little din can daunt mine ears? 

Have I not in my time heard lions roar?

Have I not heard the sea, puffed up with winds,

Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? 

Have I not heard great ordnance in the field

And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? 

Have I not in a pitched battle heard

Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang? 

And do you tell me of  a woman's tongue;

That gives not half so great a blow to hear

As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire? 

Tush, tush, fear boys with bugs! 

This passage is from Act 1, Scene 2 and is clearly filled with multiple rhetorical questions. Petruchio is trying to make his point, that he is not afraid of Katherine's sound level and irritating ways, because he has been through worse. He also uses similes when he compares the rage of the water to "an angry boar chafed with sweat." The syntax is short and to the point, yet the diction is in depth. Although Shakespeare writes with short sentences, the context of each sentence has a concept that is generally difficult to grasp.