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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.
    On womans beames I throw affection,
    Save her thats dead: or that I loosely flie
    150To'th shoare of any other wafting eie,
    Let me not prosper heaven. I will be true,
    Even to her dust and ashes: could her tombe
    Stand whilst I livde so long, that it might rot,
    That should fall downe, but she be ne're forgot.
    155Mathaeo If you have this strange monster, Honestie, in
    your belly, why so Iig-makers and chroniclers shall picke som-
    thing out of you: but and I smell not you and a bawdy house
    out within these tenne daies, let my nose be as bigge as an En-
    glish bag-pudding: Ile followe your lordship, though it be to
    160the place aforenamed. Exeunt.

    Enter Fustigo in some fantastike Sea-suite at one
    doore, a Porter meets him at another.
    Fust. How now porter, will she come?
    Porter If I may trust a woman sir, she will come.
    165Fust. Theres for thy paines, godamercy, if ever I stand in
    neede of a wench that will come with a wet finger, Porter, thou
    shalt earne my mony before anie Clarissimo in Millane; yet so
    god sa mee shees mine owne sister body and soule, as I am a
    christian Gentleman; farewell, ile ponder till shee come: thou
    170hast bin no bawde in fetching this woman, I assure thee.
    Porter No matter if I had sir, better men than Porters are
    bawdes.
    Fust. O God sir, manie that have borne offices. But Por-
    ter, art sure thou wentst into a true house?
    175Porter I thinke so, for I met with no thieves.
    Fust. Nay but arte sure it was my sister Viola.
    Porter I am sure by all superscriptions it was the partie you (ciphered.
    Fust. Not very tall.
    Porter Nor very lowe, a midling woman.
    180Fust. Twas she faith, twas she, a prettie plumpe cheeke like (mine.
    Porter At a blush, a little very much like you.
    Fust. Gods so, I would not for a duckat she had kickt vp hir
    heeles, for I ha spent an abomination this voyage, marie I
    did it amongst sailers and gentlemen: theres a little modicum
    more