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  • Title: The Honest Whore, Part 1 (Quarto 1, 1604)
  • Editor: Joost Daalder
  • Contributing editor: Brett Greatley-Hirsch
  • Coordinating editor: Brett Greatley-Hirsch
  • General textual editor: Eleanor Lowe
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-490-5

    Copyright Digital Renaissance Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Authors: Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton
    Editor: Joost Daalder
    Peer Reviewed

    The Honest Whore, Part 1 (Quarto 1, 1604)

    Enter Castruchio, Pioratto, and Fluello.
    425Cast: Signior Pioratto, signior Fluello, shalls be merry? shalls
    play the wags now?
    Flu: I, any thing that may beget the childe of laughter.
    Cast: Truth I have a pretty sportive conceit new crept into
    my braine, will moove excellent mirth.
    430Pio: Lets ha't, lets ha't, and where shall the sceane of mirth (lie?
    Cast. At signior Candidoes house, the patient man, nay the
    monstrous patient man; they say his bloud is immoveable, that
    he haz taken all patience from a man, and all constancie from
    a woman.
    435Flu. That makes so many whoores nowadayes.
    Cast. I, and so many knaves too.
    Pio. Well sir.
    Cast. To conclude, the reporte goes, hees so milde, so affa-
    ble, so suffering, that nothing indeede can moove him: now do
    440but thinke what sport it will be to make this fellow (the mirror
    of patience) as angry, as vext, and as madde as an English cuc-
    kolde.
    Flu. O, twere admirable mirth, that: but how wilt be done
    signior?
    445Cast. Let me alone, I have a tricke, a conceit, a thing, a de-
    vice will sting him yfaith, if he have but a thimblefull of blood
    ins belly, or a spleene not so bigge as a taverne token.
    Pio. Thou stirre him? thou moove him? thou anger him?
    alas, I know his approoved temper: thou vex him? why hee
    450haz a patieuce above mans iniuries: thou maiest sooner raise a
    spleane
    The Honest Whore.
    spleene in an Angell, than rough humour in him: why ile give
    you instance for it. This wonderfully temperd signior Candido
    vppon a time invited home to his house certaine Neapolitane
    lordes of curious taste, and no meane pallats, conjuring his wife
    455of all loves, to prepare cheere fitting for such honourable tren-
    cher-men. Shee (just of a womans nature, covetous to trie the
    vttermost of vexation, and thinking at last to gette the starte of
    his humour) willingly neglected the preparation, and became
    vnfurnisht, not onely of dainty, but of ordinary dishes. He (ac-
    460cording to the mildenesse of his breast) entertained the lordes,
    and with courtly discourse beguiled the time (as much as a Cit-
    tizen might doe:) to conclude, they were hungry lordes, for
    there came no meate in; their stomackes were plainely gulld,
    and their teeth deluded, and (if anger could have seizd a man)
    465there was matter enough yfaith to vex any citizen in the world,
    if hee were not too much made a foole by his wife.
    Flu. I, Ile sweare for't: sfoote, had it beene my case, I should
    ha playde mad trickes with my wife and family: first I woulde
    ha spitted the men, stewd the maides, and bak't the mistresse,
    470and so served them in.
    Pio. Why twould ha tempred any bloud but his,
    And thou to vex him? thou to anger him
    With some poore shallow jeast?
    Cast. Sbloud signior Pioratto, (you that disparage my con-
    475ceit) ile wage a hundred duckats vppon the head on't, that it
    mooves him, fretts him, and galles him.
    Pio. Done, tis a lay, ioyne golls on't: witnes signior Fluello.
    Cast. Witnes: tis done:
    Come, follow mee: the house is not farre off,
    480Ile thrust him from his humour, vex his breast,
    And winne a hundred duckats by one ieast. Exeunt.