What am I, a bit of common goods at an auction? A slave on the block up for sale? Papa has humiliated me in the worst way possible today! I must tell you about it before I burst!
After breakfast, he suggested a brisk morning walk. Bianca flew up the stairs, two at a time, to make herself gorgeous just in case we should meet two of her most prominent suitors, Gremio and Hortensio. Great Jehoshaphat, what on earth does she see in either of them? One of them is an old fool, and pantaloon besides, and the other one is a lustful young man who only wants to be alone with two things, Bianca and a bed. (Well, it's true! I can tell you these things confidentially, because I know nobody else will read them. Unless, of course, Bianca pokes her dainty nose where she shouldn't, after which I will hang her upside down in the garden by a chain and tear her hair out.)
And here she came down the stairs in an elaborate brocade dress of roses and ivory, grotesquely and tastelessly embroidered with excessive seed pearls and beads and ribbons and goodness knows what else! And her hair towering in a ridiculous coif, reeking of perfume and dripping with jewelry! Ugh!
Out we went for a walk, and, true to form, we were joined by those two jesters of Bianca's. Men must be the stupidest creatures, because even a fool could see that Bianca was just holding the two of them under her dainty little thumb! The two of them were revolting, pestering Bianca for a kiss, and she threw the most haughty smile at me in triumph, the nasty thing. They pestered Papa, too, about marrying Bianca. To my surprise, he said "No" outright – and then I realized why. Bianca knew, too, but just to put me down she asked why not. From then on, there were no holds barred. There was a terrible row, right there in the street! Papa insisted that Bianca won't marry until I do, when he knows that nobody wants to marry me. And Bianca, grinning and bridling like a fool, parading her veneer of virtue before our father like an angel! And while we were all yelling, there came a young man and his servant who stopped to watch the whole thing in amusement! I nearly died of humiliation. Hortensio had the impudence to tell me that no man would marry me unless I became gentle. But do you think that I could make them see that I was only shrewish in self-defence because of Bianca always being favoured? No! The fools don't realize that it's their own fault! I feel like second-class goods that have to be sold in a hurry.