audience will forget him-although it is not unknown for him to be
left on the stage till the very end of the play and then removed, a
device that does little or nothing either for Sly or for the taming
story).

It is, then, doubly interesting to find that there is another version
of The Taming of the Shrew, somehow distantly related to it, in which
the Sly story is carried through to the bitter end. This is the version -
not known at all to the general reader and acted on the modern
stage if at all only as a curiosity - printed in Quarto format in 1594
as 'A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called The taming of a Shrew. As it
was sundry times acted by the Right honorable the Earle of Pem-
brook his servants' (but perhaps it was not acted at all). In this text,
Sly is tricked as in the other version, and begins to watch the play-
within-the-play; but he shows interest in it, particularly in the clown
(called 'Sander', 'Saunder' or 'Saunders' but with the same function
as Grumio). 'Sim', he says to the Lord at one point (sig. CI^v), 'when
will the foole come againe?' and is assured that 'Heele come againe my
Lord anon'. After some time, he asks for confirmation of his (seemingly
strenuous) attempt to understand what is going on (sig. E4):

SLIE Sim must they be married now?

LORD I my Lord.
Enter Ferando and Kate and Sander.

SLIE Looke Sim the foole is come againe now.

Then, most amusingly, he tries to interfere with the action, when the
character corresponding to Lucentio's father Vincentio, who has
just learnt of the deception perpetrated by his son and servant, orders
that they be sent to prison (sig. F2):

SLIE I say wele have no sending to prison.

LORD My Lord this is but the play, theyre but in jest.

SLIE I tell thee Sim wele have no sending,
To prison thats flat: why Sim am not I Don Christo Vary?
Therefore I say they shall not go to prison.

LORD No more they shall not my Lord,
They be run away.

SLIE Are they run away Sim? thats well,
Then gis some more drinke, and let them play againe.

LORD Here my Lord.
Slie drinks and then falls asleepe.

Before the final scene (in which the fully tamed Kate wins her hus-

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