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)

    CVRTIZAN.
    Should haue this golden hooke, and lasciuious baite,
    Throwne out to the full length, why let me tell you:
    1060I ha seene letters sent from that white hand,
    Tuning such musicke to Matheos eare.
    Bell. Mathaeo! thats true, but if youle beleeue
    My honest tongue, my eyes no sooner met you,
    But they conueid and lead you to my heart.
    1065Hipo. Oh, you cannot faine with me, why, I know Lady,
    This is the common fashion of you all,
    To hooke in a kind gentleman, and then
    Abuse his coyne, conueying it to your louer,
    And in the end you shew him a french trick,
    1070And so you leaue him, that a coach may run
    Betweene his legs for bredth.
    Bell O by my soule!
    Not I: therein ile proue an honest whore,
    In being true to one, and to no more.
    1075Hipo. If any be disposde to trust your oath,
    Let him: ile not be he, I know you feine
    All that you speake, I: for a mingled harlot,
    Is true in nothing but in being false.
    What! shall I teach you how to loath your selfe?
    1080And mildly too: not without sense or reason.
    Bell. I am content, I would faine loath my selfe,
    If you not loue me.
    Hipo. Then if your gratious blood be not all wasted,
    I shall assay to doo't.
    1085Lend me your silence, and attention,- you haue no soule,
    That makes you wey so light: heauens treasure bought it,
    And halfe a crowne hath sold it: for your body
    Its like the common shoare, that still receiues
    All the townes filth. The sin of many men
    1090Tis within you, and thus much I suppose,
    That if all your committers stood in ranke,
    Theide make a lane, (in which your shame might dwell)
    And with their spaces reach from hence to hell.
    Nay, shall I vrge it more, there has bene knowne,
    As