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All Site ContentTaming of the ShrewAct 1Scene 1
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“love the maid…live a maid”
Wordplay
Act 1,
Scene 1
Lines 171-181

An explanation of the wordplay on "maid" in Act 1, Scene 1 of myShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. 

Lucentio

Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,    
And with her breath she did perfume the air.
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

Tranio

[Aside] Nay, then, 'tis time to stir him from his trance.
I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,
Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:    
Her eldest sister is so curst and shrewd    
That till the father rid his hands of her,
Master, your love must live a maid at home;    
And therefore has he closely mewed her up,   
Because she will not be annoyed with suitors.    

Shakespeare is playing on two senses of the word “maid”: a young girl and an unmarried woman. Because Baptista won’t allow Bianca to marry, Lucentio’s affections for her must remain bottled up inside him like an unwed maid shuttered away in a house.