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 HONEST WHORE.
    1. Mad. Whip me? out you toad:- whip me? what iustice
    is this, to whip me because Ime a begger?--Alas? I am a
    poore man: a very poore man: I am starud, and haue had no
    meate by this light, euer since the great floud, I am a poore
    2655man. Ans. Well, well; be quiet and you shall haue meate.
    1. Mad. I, I, pray do, for looke you, here be my guts: these
    are my ribs,-you may looke through my ribs,--see how my
    guts come out--these are my red guttes, my very guts, oh, oh!
    Ansel. Take him in there.
    2660Omn. A very pitious sight.
    Cast. Father I see you haue a busie charge.
    Ans. They must be vsde like children, pleasd with toyes,
    And anon whipt for their vnrulinesse:
    Ile shew you now a paire quite different
    2665From him thats gon; he was all words: and these
    Vnlesse you vrge em, seldome spend their speech,
    But saue their tongues-la you-this hithermost
    Fell from the happy quietnesse of mind,
    About a maiden that he loude, and dyed:
    2670He followed her to church, being full of teares,
    And as her body went into the ground,
    He fell starke mad. That is a maryed man,
    Was iealous of a faire, but (as some say)
    A very vertuous wife, and that spoild him.
    26752. Mad. All these are whoremongers & lay with my wife:
    whore, whore, whore, whore, whore.
    Flu. Obserue him.
    2. Mad. Gaffer shoomaker, you puld on my wiues pumps,
    and then crept into her pantofles: lye there, lye there,--this
    2680was her Tailer,-you cut out her loose-bodied gowne, and put
    in a yard more then I allowed her, lye there by the shomaker:
    ô, maister Doctor! are you here: you gaue me a purgation,
    and then crept into my wiues chamber, to feele her pulses,
    and you said, and she sayd, and her mayd said, that they went
    2685pit a pat-pit a pat-pit a pat,-Doctor Ile put you anon into my
    wiues vrinall:-heigh, come a loft Iack? this was her school-
    maister and taught her to play vpon the Virginals, and still
    his Iacks leapt vp, vp: you prickt her out nothing but bawdy
    K lessons,