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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.
    not all things belonging to a man.
    Fust. Gods my life, hee's a verie mandrake, or else (God
    blesse 225vs) one a these whiblins, and thats woorse, and then
    all the children that he gets lawfully of your body sister, are
    bastards by a statute.
    Vio: O you runne over me too fast brother, I have heard it
    often said, that hee who cannot be angry, is no man. I am sure
    230my husband is a man in print, for all things else, save onely in
    this, no tempest can move him.
    Fist. Slid, would he had beene at sea with vs, hee should ha
    beene movde and movde agen, for Ile be sworne la, our drun-
    ken ship reelde like a Dutchman.
    235Viola No losse of goods can increase in him a wrinckle, no
    crabbed language make his countenance sowre, the stubburn-
    nes of no servant shake him, he haz no more gall in him than a
    Dove, no more sting than an Ant: Musitian will he never bee,
    (yet I finde much musicke in him,) but he loves no frets, and
    is 240so free from anger, that many times I am ready to bite off my
    tongue, because it wants that vertue which all womens tongues
    have (to anger their husbands:) Brother, mine can by no thun-
    der: turne him into a sharpenes.
    Fust. Belike his blood sister, is well brewd then.
    245Viola I protest to thee Fustigo, I love him most affecti-
    onately, but I know not ---- I ha such a tickling with-
    in mee ---- such a strange longing; nay, verily I doo
    long.
    Fustigo Then y'are with childe sister, by all signes and
    250tokens; nay, I am partly a Phisitian, and partly something
    else. I ha read Albertus Magnus, and Aristotles em-
    blemes.
    Viola Y'are wide ath bow hand still brother: my longings
    are not wanton, but wayward: I long to have my patient hus-
    255band eate vp a whole Porcupine, to the intent, the bristling
    quills may sticke about his lippes like a flemmish mustacho,
    and be shot at me: I shall be leaner than the new Moone, vn-
    lesse I can make him hornemad.
    Fust: Sfoote halfe a quarter of an houre does that: make him
    260a cuckold.
    B Viola