Digital Renaissance Editions

About this text

  • Title: The Honest Whore, Part 1 (Quarto 2, 1604)
  • Editor: Joost Daalder
  • 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 2, 1604)

    THE CONVERTED
    1020I should be pleasures vsurer: faith I should.
    Bell. O fate!
    Hipo. Why sigh you Lady? may I knowe?
    Bell. T'has neuer bin my fortune yet to single
    Out that one man, whose loue could fellow mine.
    1025As I haue euer wisht it: ô my Stars!
    Had I but met with one kind gentleman,
    That would haue purchacde sin alone, to himselfe,
    For his owne priuate vse, although scarce proper:
    Indifferent hansome: meetly legd and thyed:
    1030And my allowance reasonable-yfaith,
    According to my body-by my troth,
    I would haue bin as true vnto his pleasures,
    Yea, and as loyall to his afternoones,
    As euer a poore gentlewoman could be.
    1035Hipo. This were well now, to one but newly fledg'd,
    And scarce a day old in this suttle world:
    Twere prettie Art, good bird-lime, cunning net:
    But come, come, faith-confesse: how many men
    Haue drunke this selfe-same protestation,
    1040From that red tycing lip?
    Bell. Indeede not any.
    Hipo. Indeede? and blush not!
    Bell. No, in truth not any.
    Hipo. Indeed! in truth!-how warily you sweare?
    1045Tis well: if ill it be not: yet had I
    The ruffian in me, and were drawne before you
    But in light cullors, I doe know indeed,
    You would not sweare indeede, But thunder oathes
    That should shake heauen, drowne the harmonious spheres,
    1050And pierce a soule (that lou'd her makers honour)
    With horror and amazement.
    Bell. Shall I sweare?
    Wil you belieue me then?
    Hipn. Worst then of all,
    1055Our sins by custome, seeme (at last) but small.
    Were I but o're your threshold, a nex man,
    And after him a next, and then a fourth,
    Should