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All Site ContentTaming of the ShrewAct IntroductionScene 1
Back to the Play
“A pair of stocks”
Cultural Context
Act Introduction,
Scene 1
Lines 1-4

An explanation of the Hostess’s call for “a pair of stocks” for Sly in Introduction 1 of myShakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

[A country inn. Enter Christopher Sly, a drunkard, and the inn’s hostess, the owner’s wife.]

Sly

I'll feeze you, in faith.     

Hostess

A pair of stocks, you rogue!    

Sly

You’re a baggage, the Slys are no rogues. Look in the     
chronicles, we came in with Richard Conqueror.     

The Hostess is threatening to have Sly put into the stocks, a device for punishing prisoners. It was called “a pair of stocks” because the planks through which the prisoner’s legs protrude were held in place by a pair of vertical stocks (posts).