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“cum privilegio ad imprimendum solem”
Cultural Context
Act 4,
Scene 4
Lines 87-93

An explanation of Biondello’s Latin in Act 4, Scene 4 of myShakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

Lucentio

And what of all this?

Biondello

I cannot tell, except they are busied about a
counterfeit assurance. Take you assurance of her, cum     
privilegio ad imprimendum solem. To the church take the        
priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses. If
this be not that you look for, I have no more to say but     
bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day. [Starts to leave]

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.