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)

    1471.1[3.3]
    Enter at one door Lodovico and Carolo; at another Bots and Mistress Horseleech. Candido and his Bride appear in the shop.
    1475Lodovico
    Hist, hist, Lieutenant Bots, how dost, man?
    Carolo
    Whither are you ambling, Madam Horseleech?
    Horseleech
    About worldly profit, sir. How do your worships?
    We want tools, gentlemen, to furnish the trade. They wear out day and night; they wear out till no mettle 1480be left in their back. We hear of two or three new wenches are come up with a carrier, and your old goshawk here [Indicating Horseleech] is flying at them.
    Lodovico
    [To Horseleech] And, faith, what flesh have you at home?
    Horseleech
    Ordinary dishes. By my troth, sweet men, thereʼs 1485few good iʼthʼ city. I am as well furnished as any, and, though I say it, as well customed.
    We have meats of all sorts of dressing. We have stewed meat for your Frenchman, pretty light picking meat for your Italian, and that which is rotten roasted for Don 1490Spaniardo.
    Lodovico
    A pox onʼt!
    We have poultererʼs ware for your sweet bloods, as dove, chicken, duck, teal, woodcock, and so forth; and butcherʼs meat for the citizen. Yet muttons fall very bad 1495this year.
    Lodovico
    [Observing Candido and his Bride in the shop] Stay – is not that my patient linen-draper yonder, and my fine young smug mistress, his wife?
    Carolo
    [To Horseleech] Sirrah grannam, Iʼll give thee for thy feet twenty crowns, if thou canst but procure me the wearing of yon 1500velvet cap.
    Horseleech
    Youʼd wear another thing besides the cap. Youʼre a wag.
    [To her] Twenty crowns? Weʼll share, and Iʼll be your pulley to draw her on.
    1505Lodovico
    Doʼt presently; weʼll haʼ some sport.
    Horseleech
    [To Lodovico and Carolo] Wheel you about, sweet men. Do you see? Iʼll cheapen wares of the man, whilst Bots is doing with his wife.
    Lodovico
    Toʼt. If we come into the shop to do you grace, weʼll call you madam.
    [Aside to Horseleech as they approach the shop] Pox oʼyour old face! Give it the badge of all scurvy faces, a mask.
    [She puts on a mask.]
    Candido
    What isʼt you lack, gentlewoman? Cambric or lawns, or fine hollands? Pray draw near; I can sell you a pennyworth.
    Some cambric for my old lady.
    Candido
    Cambric? You shall; the purest thread in Milan.
    Lodovico and Carolo
    [Approaching] Save you, Signor Candido.
    Lodovico
    How does my noble master? How my fair mistress?
    Candido
    [Showing cambric to Bots]
    My worshipful good servant, view it well,
    For ʼtis 1520both fine and even.
    Carolo
    [To Horseleech] Cry you mercy, madam; though masked, I thought it should be you by your man. [To Candido] Pray, signor, show her the best, for she commonly deals for good ware.
    Candido
    Then this shall fit her. – This is for your ladyship.
    [He and Horseleech talk together.]
    [Talking apart to the Bride] A word, I pray. There is a waiting gentlewoman of my ladyʼs. Her name is Ruina; sayʼs sheʼs your kinswoman, and that you should be one of her aunts.
    One of her aunts? Troth, sir, I know her not.
    If it please you to bestow the poor labour of your 1530legs at any time, I will be your convoy thither.
    I am a snail, sir; seldom leave my house. Ifʼt please her to visit me, she shall be welcome.
    Do you hear? The naked truth is my lady hath a young knight, her son, who loves you. Youʼre made, if you 1535lay hold uponʼt. This jewel he sends you.
    [He offers a jewel and takes her by the hand.]
    Sir, I return his love and jewel with scorn. Let go my hand, or I shall call my husband. You are an arrant knave.
    Exit.
    Lodovico
    [To Bots] What, will she do?
    Do? They shall all do, if Bots sets upon them once. She was as if she had professed the trade, squeamish at first. At last I showed her this jewel; said a knight sent it her.
    Lodovico
    Isʼt gold, and right stones?
    Copper, copper; I go a-fishing with these baits. 1545She nibbled, but would not swallow the hook, because the conger-head her husband was by. But she bids the gentleman name any afternoon, and sheʼll meet him at her garden house, which I know.
    Lodovico
    Is this no lie, now?
    Damn me if –
    Lodovico
    O prithee, stay there.
    The twenty crowns, sir.
    Lodovico
    Before he [Indicating Carolo] has his work done? But on my knightly word, he shall payʼt thee.
    1555Enter Astolfo, Beraldo, Fontinell, and [Brian], the Irish footman.
    Astolfo
    [To Brian] I thought thou hadst been gone into thine own country.
    No, faat, la; I cannot go dis four or tree days.
    Beraldo
    Look thee, yonderʼs the shop, and thatʼs the man 1560himself.
    Fontinell
    Thou shalt but cheapen, and do as we told thee, to put a jest upon him to abuse his patience.
    Iʼfaat, I doubt my pate shall be knocked. But, sa Crees saʼ me, for your shakes I will run to any linen-draper in 1565hell. Come, predee.
    Astolfo, Beraldo, and Fontinell
    Save you, gallants.
    Lodovico and Carolo
    O, well met!
    Candido
    [To Horseleech] Youʼll give no more, you say? I cannot take it.
    Horseleech
    Truly, Iʼll give no more.
    1570Candido
    It must not fetch it.
    [To Astolfo, Bernardo, and Fontinell]
    What would you have, sweet gentlemen?
    Astolfo
    [Indicating Brian] Nay, hereʼs the customer.
    Exeunt Bots and Horseleech.
    Lodovico
    [Aside] The garden house, you say? Weʼll bolt out your roguery.
    1575Candido
    [To Astolfo, Bernardo, and Fontinell]
    I will but lay these parcels by; my men
    Are all at Custom-House unloading wares.
    If cambric you would deal in, thereʼs the best;
    All Milan cannot sample it.
    [He displays cambric.]
    Lodovico
    [To him] Do you hear? One, two, three – ʼsfoot, there came in four gallants! Sure your wife is slipped up, and the fourth man, I hold 1580my life, is grafting your warden tree.
    Candido
    Ha, ha, ha! You gentlemen are full of jest.
    If she be up, sheʼs gone some wares to show;
    I have above as good wares as below.
    Lodovico
    Have you so? Nay, then –
    1585Candido
    [To Astolfo, Bernardo, and Fontinell]
    Now, gentlemen, isʼt cambrics?
    I predee, now, let me have de best wares.
    Candido
    Whatʼs that he says, pray, gentlemen?
    Lodovico
    Marry, he says we are like to have the best wars.
    Candido
    The best wars? All are bad. Yet wars do good.
    1590And, like to surgeons, let sick kingdoms blood.
    Faat a devil pratʼst tou so? A pox on dee! I predee, let me see some hollen, to make linen shirts, for fear my body be lousy.
    Candido
    Indeed, I understand no word he speaks.
    1595Carolo
    Marry, he says that at the siege in Holland there was much bawdry used among the soldiers, though they were lousy.
    Candido
    It may be so; thatʼs likely – true, indeed.
    In every garden, sir, does grow that weed.
    Pox on de gardens, and de weeds, and de foolʼs cap dere, and de clouts, hear? Dost make a hobby-horse of me?
    [He tears the cambric.]
    All Gentlemen
    O fie, he has torn the cambric!
    Candido
    ʼTis no matter.
    1605Astolfo
    It frets me to the soul.
    Candido
    So doesʼt not me.
    My customers do oft for remnants call;
    These are two remnants now, no loss at all.
    But let me tell you, were my servants here,
    1610It would haʼ cost more. – Thank you, gentlemen.
    I use you well; pray know my shop again.
    Exit.
    All Gentlemen
    Ha, ha, ha! Come, come; letʼs go, letʼs go.
    Exeunt.