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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)

    THE HONEST WHORE.
    And on your eye-lids hang so heauily,
    They haue no power to looke so high as heauen,
    Youde sit and muse on nothing but despayre,
    Curse that deuil Lust, that so burnes vp your blood,
    1175And in ten thousand shiuers breake your glasse
    For his temptation. Say you taste delight,
    To haue a golden Gull from rize to Set,
    To meat you in his hote luxurious armes,
    Yet your nights pay for all: I know you dreame
    1180Of warrants, whips, & Beadles, and then start
    At a dores windy creake: thinke euery Weezle
    To be a Constable: and euery Rat
    A long tayld Officer: Are you now not slaues?
    Oh you haue damnation without pleasure for it!
    1185Such is the state of Harlots. To conclude,
    When you are old, and can well paynt no more,
    You turne Bawd, and are then worse then before:
    Make vse of this: farewell.
    Bel. Oh, I pray stay.
    1190Hip. See Matheo comes not: time hath bard me,
    Would all the Harlots in the towne had heard me. Exit.
    Bel. Stay yet a little longer. no: quite gone!
    Curst be that minute (for it was no more.
    So soone a mayd is chang'd into a Whore)
    1195Wherein I first fell, be it for euer blacke;
    Yet why should sweet Hipolito shun mine eyes;
    For whose true loue I would becom pure-honest,
    Hate the worlds mixtures, & the smiles of gold:
    Am I not fayre? Why should he flye me then?
    1200Faire creatures are desir'd, not scornd of men.
    How many Gallants haue drunk healthes to me,
    Out of their daggerd armes, & thought thē blest,
    Enioying but mine eyes at prodigall feasts!
    And does Hipolito detest my loue?
    1205Oh, sure their heedlesse lusts but flattred me,
    I am not pleasing, beautifull nor young.
    Hipolito hath spyed some vgly blemish,
    Eclipsing all my beauties: I am foule:
    Harlot!