"Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
Katherine: In his tongue.
Petruchio: Whose tongue?
Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.”

My acquaintance with The Taming of the Shrew (popular with Shakespeare Competition Drama students) was renewed yesterday when a wasp stung me on the upper arm. Although the above passage did not come immediately to mind, as I was reeling in mild agony from this unreasonable and unprovoked assault, it did with the passage of time.

A wasp sting is particularly nasty. I have been stung by assorted bees in the past (an insect that has the decency to expire after the offensive), but wasps can sting many times and survive to sting again. Six hours after the attack, my arm was still aching. I realize that bees and wasps have different lives and purposes - the former's being more noble in my estimation.

An upside of this affair was that the wasp's lair was discovered inside my wooden venetian blinds and that the threat has been neutralised. I too am a gentleman Petruchio, and this tale of waspish skulduggery is told.