Digital Renaissance Editions

About this text

  • Title: The Honest Whore, Part 2 (Modern)
  • 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.
    Author: Thomas Dekker
    Editor: Joost Daalder
    Peer Reviewed

    The Honest Whore, Part 2 (Modern)

    1290.1[3.2]
    Enter Mattheo, [who stands aside], Bellafront, and Orlando [as Pacheco].
    Bellafront
    How now, what ails your master?
    Orlando
    Hʼas taken a younger brotherʼs purge, forsooth, and that works with him.
    1295Bellafront
    Where is his cloak and rapier?
    Orlando
    He has given up his cloak, and his rapier is bound to the peace. If you look a little higher, you may see that another hath entered into hatband for him too. Six and four have put him into this sweat.
    1300Bellafront
    Whereʼs all his money?
    Orlando
    ʼTis put over by exchange. His doublet was going to be translated, but for me. If any man would haʼ lent but half a ducat on his beard, the hair of it had stuffed a pair of breeches by this time. I had but one poor penny, and 1305that I was glad to niggle out and buy a holly-wand to grace him through the street. As hap was, his boots were on, and them I dustied, to make people think he had been riding and I had run by him.
    Bellafront
    O me! [To Mattheo] How does my sweet Mattheo?
    1310Mattheo
    O rogue, of what devilish stuff are these dice made of? Of the parings of the devilʼs corns of his toes, that they run thus damnably?
    Bellafront
    I prithee, vex not.
    Mattheo
    If any handicraftsman was ever suffered to keep 1315shop in hell, it will be a dice-maker. Heʼs able to undo more souls than the devil; I played with mine own dice, yet lost. Haʼ you any money?
    Bellafront
    ʼLas, I haʼ none.
    Mattheo
    Must have money, must have some, must have a 1320cloak and rapier and things. Will you go set your lime-twigs and get me some birds, some money?
    Bellafront
    What lime-twigs should I set?
    Mattheo
    You will not, then? Must have cash and pictures. Do ye hear, frailty? Shall I walk in a Plymouth cloak, 1325thatʼs to say like a rogue, in my hose and doublet, and a crab-tree cudgel in my hand, and you swim in your satins? Must have money, come!
    [Taking off her gown.]
    Orlando
    Isʼt bedtime, master, that you undo my mistress?
    Bellafront
    Undo me? Yes, yes, at these riflings 1330I
    Have been too often.
    Mattheo
    Help to flay, Pacheco.
    Orlando
    Flaying call you it?
    Mattheo
    [To Bellafront] Iʼll pawn you, by thʼLord, to your very eyebrows.
    Bellafront
    With all my heart; since heaven will have me poor,
    1335As good be drowned at sea as drowned at shore.
    Orlando
    Why, hear you, sir? Iʼfaith, do not make away her gown.
    Mattheo
    O, itʼs summer, itʼs summer; your only fashion for a woman now is to be light, to be light.
    1340Orlando
    Why, pray, sir, employ some of that money you have of mine.
    Mattheo
    Thine? Iʼll starve first, Iʼll beg first; when I touch a penny of that, let these fingersʼ ends rot.
    Orlando
    [Aside] So they may, for thatʼs past touching. I saw my 1345twenty pounds fly high.
    Mattheo
    Knowst thou never a damned broker about the city?
    Orlando
    Damned broker? Yes – five hundred.
    Mattheo
    The gown stood me in above twenty ducats; 1350borrow ten of it. Cannot live without silver.
    Orlando
    Iʼll make what I can of it, sir; Iʼll be your broker.
    [Aside] But not your damned broker. O, thou scurvy knave!
    What makes a wife turn whore but such a slave?
    Exit [with Bellafrontʼs gown. She weeps.]
    Mattheo
    How now, little chick? What ailst? Weeping 1355for a handful of tailorʼs shreds? Pox on them! Are there not silks enough at mercerʼs?
    Bellafront
    I care not for gay feathers, I.
    Mattheo
    What dost care for, then? Why dost grieve?
    Bellafront
    Why do I grieve? A thousand sorrows strike
    1360At one poor heart, and yet it lives. Mattheo,
    Thou art a gamester; prithee throw at all,
    Set all upon one cast. We kneel and pray,
    And struggle for life, yet must be cast away.
    Meet misery quickly then, split all, sell all,
    1365And when thou hast sold all, spend it. But, I beseech thee,
    Build not thy mind on me to coin thee more.
    To get it wouldst thou have me play the whore?
    Mattheo
    ʼTwas your profession before I married you.
    Bellafront
    Umh! It was, indeed: if all men should be branded
    1370For sins long since laid up, who could be saved?
    The quarter-dayʼs at hand; how will you do
    To pay the rent, Mattheo?
    Mattheo
    Why, do as all of your occupation do against quarter-days: break up house, remove, shift your 1375lodgings. Pox oʼyour quarters!
    Enter Lodovico.
    Lodovico
    Whereʼs this gallant?
    Mattheo
    Signor Lodovico! How does my little Mirror of Knighthood? This is kindly done, iʼfaith. Welcome, by my 1380troth.
    Lodovico
    And how dost, frolic? – Save you, fair lady. – Thou lookst smug and bravely, noble Mat.
    Mattheo
    Drink and feed, laugh and lie warm.
    Lodovico
    Is this thy wife?
    1385Mattheo
    A poor gentlewoman, sir, whom I make use of a-nights.
    Lodovico
    Pay custom to your lips, sweet lady.
    [He kisses her.]
    Mattheo
    [Aside to her] Borrow some shells of him. [Aloud] Some wine, sweetheart.
    1390Lodovico
    Iʼll send forʼt then, iʼfaith.
    Mattheo
    You send forʼt? [To Bellafront] Some wine, I prithee.
    Bellafront
    [Aside to him] I haʼ no money.
    Mattheo
    [Aside to her] ʼSblood, nor I. [Aloud] What wine love you, signor?
    Lodovico
    [Giving money to Bellafront]
    Here; or Iʼll not stay, I protest. Trouble the 1395gentlewoman too much?
    Exit Bellafront.
    And what news flies abroad, Mattheo?
    Mattheo
    Troth, none. O, signor, we haʼ been merry in our days!
    Lodovico
    And no doubt shall again. 1400The divine powers
    Never shoot darts at mortal men to kill them.
    Mattheo
    You say true.
    Lodovico
    Why should we grieve at want? Say the world made thee
    Her minion, that 1405thy head lay in her lap,
    And that she danced thee on her wanton knee,
    She could but give thee a whole world. Thatʼs all,
    And that allʼs nothing; the worldʼs greatest part
    Cannot fill up one corner of thy heart.
    Say the three corners were all filled; alas,
    1410Of what art thou possessed? A thin-blown glass
    Such as by boys is puffed into the air.
    Were twenty kingdoms thine, thouʼdst live in care:
    Thou couldst not sleep the better nor live longer,
    Nor merrier be, nor healthfuller, nor stronger.
    1415If, then, thou wantst, thus make that want thy pleasure;
    No man wants all things, nor has all in measure.
    Mattheo
    I am the most wretched fellow; sure some left-handed priest christened me, I am so unlucky. I am never out of one puddle or another, still falling.
    1420Enter Bellafront [with wine], and Orlando.
    [To her] Fill out wine to my little finger. [To Lodovico] With my heart, iʼfaith.
    [He drinks.]
    Lodovico
    Thanks, good Mattheo. To your own sweet self. [He drinks.]
    1425Orlando
    [Aside to Mattheo] All the brokersʼ hearts, sir, are made of flint. I can with all my knocking strike but six sparks of fire out of them. Hereʼs six ducats, if youʼll take them.
    Mattheo
    [Aside to him] Give me them. [Taking money] An evil conscience gnaw them all! Moths and plagues hang upon their lousy wardrobes!
    1430Lodovico
    Is this your man, Mattheo? An old servingman?
    Orlando
    You may give me tʼother half too, sir – thatʼs the beggar.
    Lodovico
    [To Mattheo] What hast there? Gold?
    Mattheo
    A sort of rascals are in my debt God knows 1435what, and they feed me with bits, with crumbs. A pox choke them!
    Lodovico
    A word, Mattheo. Be not angry with me.
    Believe it that I know the touch of time
    And can part copper, though it be gilded oʼer,
    1440From the true gold. The sails which thou dost spread
    Would show well if they were not borrowèd.
    The sound of thy low fortunes drew me hither;
    I give myself unto thee – prithee use me.
    I will bestow on you a suit of satin
    1445And all things else to fit a gentleman,
    Because I love you.
    Mattheo
    Thanks, good, noble knight.
    Lodovico
    Call on me when you please. Till then, farewell.
    Exit.
    1450Mattheo
    [To Bellafront] Hast angled? Hast cut up this fresh salmon?
    Bellafront
    Wouldst have me be so base?
    Mattheo
    Itʼs base to steal, itʼs base to be a whore.
    Thouʼt be more base: Iʼll make thee keep a door.
    Exit.
    Orlando
    I hope he will not sneak away with all the money, 1455will he?
    Bellafront
    Thou seest he does.
    Orlando
    Nay, then, itʼs well I set my brains upon an upright last. Though my wits be old, yet they are like a withered pippin, wholesome. Look you, mistress, I told him I had but six 1460ducats of the knave broker, but I had eight, and kept these two for you.
    [He gives her money.]
    Bellafront
    Thou shouldst have given him all.
    Orlando
    What, to fly high?
    Bellafront
    Like waves, my misery drives on misery.
    Exit.
    1465Orlando
    Sell his wifeʼs clothes from her back? Does any poultererʼs wife pull chickens alive? He riots all abroad, wants all at home; he dices, whores, swaggers, swears, cheats, borrows, pawns. Iʼll give him hook and line a little more for all this;
    1470Yet sure iʼthʼ end heʼll delude all my hopes,
    And show me a French trick danced on the ropes.
    Exit.