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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.
    Bel. You loue one, and one loues you.
    You are a false knaue, and shees a Iew,
    Here is a Diall that false euer goes.
    Mat. O your wit drops.
    2770Bel. Troth so does your nose, nay lets shake hands with you (too:
    Pray open, heres a fine hand,
    Ho Fryer ho, God be here,
    So he had need: youle keepe good cheere,
    Heres a free table, but a frozen breast,
    2775For youle starue those that loue you best.
    Yet you haue good fortune, for if I am no lyar,
    Then you are no Frier, nor you, nor you no Frier discouers (them
    Haha haha.
    Duk. Are holy habits cloakes for villanie?
    2780Draw all your weapons.
    Hip. doe, draw all your weapons.
    Duk. Where are your weapons, draw.
    Omn. The Frier has guld vs of em.
    Mat. O rare tricke:
    2785You ha learnt one mad point of Arithmaticke.
    Hip. Why swels your spleene so hie? against what bosome,
    Would you your weapons draw? hers! tis your daughters:
    Mine! tis your sonnes.
    Duk: Sonne?
    2790Mat. Sonne, by yonder Sunne.
    Hip. You cannot shed blould here, but tis your owne,
    To spill your owne bloud were damnation,
    Lay smooth that wrinckled brow, and I will throw
    My selfe beneath your feete,
    2795Let it be rugged still and flinted o're,
    What can come forth but sparkles, that will burne,
    Your selfe and vs? Shees mine; my claymes most good,
    Shees mine by marriage, tho shees yours by bloud.
    I haue a hand deare Lord, deepe in this act,
    2800For I foresaw this storme, yet willingly
    Put fourth to meete it? Oft haue I seene a father
    Washing the wounds of his deare sonne in teares,
    A sonne to curse the sword that strucke his father,
    Both