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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.
    One woman serues for mans damnation.
    Beshrew thee, thou doost make me violate,
    The chastest and most sanctimonious vow,
    1855That ere was entred in the court of heauen:
    I was on meditations spottles wings,
    vpon my iorney thether; like a storme
    Thou beats my ripened cogitations,
    flat to the ground: and like a theife doost stand,
    1860To steale deuotion from the holy land.
    Bel. If woman were thy mother; if thy hart,
    Bee not all Marble, (or ift Marble be)
    Let my teares soften it, to pitty me,
    I doe beseech the doe not thus with scorne,
    1865Destroy a woman.
    Hip. Woman I beseech thee,
    Get thee some other suite, this fits thee not,
    I would not grant it to a kneeling Queene,
    I cannot loue thee, nor I must not: See,
    1870The copy of that obligation,
    Where my soule's bound in heauy penalties.
    Bel. She's dead you told me, shele let fal her suite.
    Hip. My vowes to her, fled after her to heauen,
    Were thine eyes cleere as mine, thou mightst behold her,
    1875Watching vpon yon battlements of starres,
    How I obserue them: should I breake my bond,
    This bord would riue in twaine, these wooden lippes
    Call me most periurde villaine, let it suffice,
    I ha set thee in the path; Ist not a signe,
    1880I loue thee, when with one so most most deare,
    Ile haue thee fellowes? All are fellowes there.
    Bel. Be greater then a king, saue not a body,
    But from eternall shipwracke keepe a soule,
    If not, and that againe, sinnes path I tread,
    1885The griefe be mine, the guilt fall on thy head.
    Hip. Stay and take Phisicke for it, read this booke,
    Aske counsell of this head whats to be done,
    Hele strike it dead that tis damnation,
    If you turne turke againe, oh doe it not,
    The