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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.
    1475Wi. Prythee George. Geor. Well, if youle saue me
    harmlesse, and put me vnder couert barne, I am content to
    please you prouided it may breed no wrong against him.
    Wi. No wrong at all: here take the Key, be gone:
    If any vex him, this: if not this, none Exeunt.
    1480SCENA 8.
    Enter a Bawd and Roger.
    Bawd. O Roger, Roger, where's your mistris, wher's your
    mistris? there's the finest, neatest Gentleman at my house,
    but newly come ouer: O where is she, where is she, where
    1485is she?
    Rog. My mistris is abroad, but not amongst em: my mi-
    stris is not the whore now that you take her for.
    Baw. How? is she not a whore? do you go about to take
    away her good name, Roger? you are a fine Pandar indeed.
    1490Rog. I tell you, Madona Finger-locke, I am not sad for
    nothing, I ha not eaten one good meale this three & thir-
    ty dayes: I had wont to get sixteene pence by fetching a
    pottle of Hypocras: but now those dayes are past: we had
    as good doings, Madona Finger-locke, she within dores and
    1495I without, as any poore yong couple in Millain.
    Baw. Gods my life, and is she chang'd now?
    Rog. I ha lost by her squeamishnesse, more then would
    haue builded 12. bawdy houses.
    And had she no time to turn honest but now? what a vile
    1500woman is this? twenty pound a night, Ile be sworne, Roger,
    in good gold and no siluer: why here was a time, if she
    should ha pickt out a time, it could not be better! gold y-
    nough stirring; choyce of men, choyce of haire, choyce of
    beards, choyce of legs, and choyce of euery, euery, euery
    1505thing: it cannot sink into my head, that she should be such
    an Asse. Roger, I neuer beleeue it.
    Rog. Here she comes now. Enter Bellafronte.
    Baw. O sweet Madona, on with your loose gowne, your
    felt & your feather, there's the sweetest, proprest, gallantest
    1510Gentleman at my house, he smells all of Muske & Amber
    greece, his pocket full of Crownes, flame-colourd dublet,
    red satin hose, Carnation silk stockins, and a leg and a bo-
    dy, oh!
    Bel. Hence