Act IV, Scene 2 returns us to Padua and the play's subplot. The scene, generally comic in nature, accomplishes two major things. First, it removes Hortensio from the love triangle and helps set up the marriage triad which is so crucial to Act V, Scene 2. Next, Lucentio and Tranio find an old man to impersonate Lucentio's father, Vincentio, and make the last part of their charade complete.
Hortensio's quick and simple rejection of his beloved Bianca may strike us as curious, but his action contributes to Shakespeare's predominate themes of courtship and marriage. Hortensio is easily as fickle as any woman in his feelings for Bianca. Instead of gracefully removing himself from the love triangle, Hortensio removes himself with an unwarranted vengeance (which, rest assured, will later earn him what he deserves). He is quick to curse Bianca, but the joke really is on him, as the audience is well aware. Hortensio's somewhat cryptic line "Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!" (35) provides a clue as to his folly. He says, in essence, that he hopes everyone in the world will forsake Bianca except the poverty-stricken Cambio, leaving her with what she deserves — nothing. In reality, though, Cambio is far from poor and is, in fact, quite a good catch.
Through Hortensio's easy transference of affection, from Bianca to the unnamed widow, Shakespeare again directs our attention to the fleeting nature of supposed "love." As we have seen before, marriage is, for Hortensio as well as other male characters, merely a business transaction. Hortensio feels pressure to be married, so he shall be. He admits to selecting a potential spouse based on beauty (41), but when that doesn't work, he opts for selecting one based on "kindness" (41). We will see later, though, that Hortensio did not necessarily follow his own advice, opting instead to marry for financial reasons (not unlike his good friend Petruchio).
