Peer Reviewed
- Edition: The Honest Whore, Part 1
The Honest Whore, Part 1 (Modern)
- Introduction
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- The Honest Whore, Parts 1 and 2: Acknowledgements
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- The Honest Whore, Parts 1 and 2: Abbreviations
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- The Honest Whore, Parts 1 and 2: Introduction
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- The Honest Whore, Parts 1 and 2: Analysis of the Plays
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- The Honest Whore, Parts 1 and 2: The Plays in Performance
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- The Honest Whore, Parts 1 and 2: Textual Introduction
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- The Honest Whore, Parts 1 and 2: Appendices
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- Texts of this edition
- Facsimiles
1480[3.2]
O Roger, Roger, where始s your mistress, where始s your 1483mistress? There始s the finest, neatest gentleman at my house, 1484but newly come over. O, where is she, where 1485is she?
My mistress is abroad, but not amongst 始em. My 1487mistress is not the whore now that you take her for.
How? Is she not a whore? Do you go about to take 1489away her good name, Roger? You are a fine pander indeed!
I tell you, Madonna Fingerlock, I am not sad for 1491nothing. I ha始 not eaten one good meal this three-and-1492thirty days. I had wont to get sixteen pence by fetching a 1493pottle of hippocras, but now those days are past. We had 1494as good doings, Madonna Fingerlock, she within doors and 1495I without, as any poor young couple in Milan.
God始s my life, and is she changed now?
I ha始 lost by her squeamishness more than would 1498have builded twelve bawdy-houses.
And had she no time to turn honest but now? What a vile 1500woman is this! Twenty pound a night, I始ll be sworn, Roger, 1501in good gold and no silver. Why, here was a time! If she 1502should ha始 picked out a time, it could not be better. Gold 1503enough stirring, choice of men, choice of hair, choice of 1504beards, choice of legs, and choice of every, every, every 1505thing. It cannot sink into my head that she should be such 1506an ass. Roger, I never believe it.
Here she comes now.
3.2.8.1Enter Bellafront.
O sweet madonna, on with your loose gown, your 1509felt and your feather! There始s the sweetest, prop始rest, gallantest 1510gentleman at my house. He smells all of musk and 1511ambergris, his pocket full of crowns, flame-coloured doublet, 1512red satin hose, carnation silk stockings, and a leg and a 1513body – O!
Hence, thou our sex始s monster, poisonous bawd,
Marry come up, with a pox! Have you nobody to 1528rail against but your bawd now?
[To Roger] And you, knave pander, kinsman to a bawd –
[To Fingerlock] You and I, madonna, are cousins.
Of the same blood and making, near allied;
Sixpence? Nay, that始s not so; I never took under two 1534shillings four-pence. I hope I know my fee.
I know not against which most to inveigh,
If it be my vocation to swear, every man in his 1542vocation; I hope my betters swear and damn themselves, and 1543why should not I?
3.2.36Bellafront
Roger, you cheat kind gentlemen!
The more gulls they.
Slave, I cashier thee.
An you do cashier him, he shall be entertained.
Shall I? [To Bellafront] Then blurt o始your service.
[To Fingerlock] As hell would have it, entertained by you!
3.2.42.1Exit.
Marry gup, are you grown so holy, so pure, so 1551honest, with a pox?
Scurvy honest punk! But stay, madonna, how must 1553our agreement be now? For, you know, I am to have all the 1554comings-in at the hall door, and you at the chamber door.
True, Roger, except my vails.
3.2.46Roger
Vails? What vails?
Why, as thus: if a couple come in a coach and 始light to 1557lie down a little, then, Roger, that始s my fee, and you may walk 1558abroad; for the coachman himself is their pander.
Is 始a so? In truth, I have almost forgot, for want of 1560exercise. But how if I fetch this citizen始s wife to that gull, and 1561that madonna to that gallant? How then?
Why then, Roger, you are to have sixpence a lane – 1563so many lanes, so many sixpences.
Is始t so? Then I see we two shall agree and live together.
Ay, Roger, so long as there be any taverns and 1566bawdy-houses in Milan.
3.2.51.1Exeunt.