“cum privilegio ad imprimendum solem”
Cultural Context
Act 4,
Scene 4
Lines 87-93
Lucentio
Biondello
Biondello is simply quoting the only bit of legalese with which a simple servant like himself would have been familiar: the copyright statement printed in the front of books of this period. But perhaps Shakespeare is making a subtle reference to the chauvinistic character of Elizabethan society by comparing a publisher’s exclusive rights to the contents of a book to a husband’s exclusive rights to the sexual favors of his wife.