This sort of device was quite common during the Elizabethan era. The Taming of the Shrew opens with a framing story, labeled the Induction in the text. Sly sits beside his "wife" and prepares to take in the spectacle.
At this, the page plays his part as Sly's wife, rejoicing at his "recovery," and a messenger readily announces that the Players are ready to perform. Sly finally begins to accept his altered social status when he finds out that he has "a lady far more beautiful/Than any woman in this waning age" (Ind.2: 62-63). Scene two begins as Sly insists that he is his poor and drunken self in protest, The Lord insists on Sly's nobility and implores him to wake from his malady. The page will then pretend that Sly has been afflicted by lunacy for many years and has dreamed himself to be no better than a lowly tinker. The Lord informs them that "a lord" is visiting the house and will hear them play, and warns them of his "odd behavior." In the meantime, the Lord orders that his page masquerade as Sly's wife. Soon afterward, a troupe of Players arrives at the Lord's house, intent on performing that night. He tells his servants to carry Sly to his own noble chambers and pretend that Sly is in fact a lord. The Lord decides to play a trick on the drunkard.
While he sleeps, a mischevious Lord and his followers spot the sleeping Sly.
After a brief argument with the alehouses' Hostess, Sly lies on the ground and drifts into a deep, inebriated sleep. Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker, stumbles out of an alehouse.
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