Lucentio, overhearing the whole exchange between Baptista, his daughters, and Bianca's would-be suitors, has fallen immediately in love with Bianca. Of course to us this seems entirely incredulous, but love at first sight is a common element to romantic farces such as The Taming of the Shrew. Lucentio, in fact, takes on elements of a stock character type himself: the courtly lover. In words reminiscent of Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" or the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, Lucentio recounts how the sudden sight of Bianca "hath thralled [his] wounded eye" (221). In keeping with the tradition of courtly love, Lucentio's wound is not initially in his heart, but in his eye, that organ through which he first espied his love. Lucentio borders on becoming a parody of courtly love as he provides a fairly full cataloguing of Bianca's beauty and its effect on him. He praises her modesty, as well as the "sweet beauty in her face" (168), "her coral lips" (175), her breath which did "perfume the air" (176), and her all around "sacred and sweet" nature (177). To his credit, he also feels the proper Petrarchan responses to Bianca's beauty. He laments that he burns, pines, and perishes (156), consumed by his aching love for Baptista's younger daughter. Lucentio becomes, in effect, the quintessential courtly lover and will later be starkly contrasted with not only Petruchio's motivation for marriage but also the primitive and powerful taming techniques Petruchio later uses.
Finally, the important theme of disguise is also advanced in this scene. By the end of the scene, we have a total of four people assuming disguise (Sly and Bartholomew in the Induction; Lucentio and Tranio in Act I, Scene 1). The disguises so far have been overt and sartorial in nature; people assume physical disguises in attempt to pass themselves off as someone else. Seeing so many people assuming identities reminds us that The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy of mistaken and disguised identity — a theme that will become increasingly more complex (yet increasingly subtle) as the play unfolds.
