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)

    2050.1[4.2]
    Enter the Duke, Lodovico, and Orlando [as Pacheco]; after them Infelice, Carolo, Astolfo, Beraldo, [and] Fontinell.
    Orlando
    I beseech your Grace, though your eye be so piercing as under a poor blue coat to cull out an honest father from 2055an old servingman, yet, good my lord, discover not the plot to any but only this gentleman that is now to be an actor in our ensuing comedy.
    Thou hast thy wish, Orlando. Pass unknown;
    Sforza shall only go along with thee,
    2060To see that warrant served upon thy son.
    Lodovico
    To attach him upon felony for two pedlars, is始t not so?
    Orlando
    Right, my noble knight. Those pedlars were two knaves of mine; he fleeced the men before, and now he purposes to flay the master. He will rob me; his teeth water to 2065be nibbling at my gold. But this shall hang him by th始gills, till I pull him on shore.
    Away; ply you the business.
    Orlando
    Thanks to your Grace. But, my good lord, for my daughter –
    You know what I have said.
    Orlando
    And remember what I have sworn. She始s more honest, on my soul, than one of the Turk始s wenches watched by a hundred eunuchs.
    Lodovico
    So she had need, for the Turks make them whores.
    2075Orlando
    He始s a Turk that makes any woman a whore; he始s no true Christian, I始m sure. I commit your Grace.
    Infelice?
    Infelice
    Here, sir.
    [The Duke and Infelice step aside.]
    Lodovico
    Signor Frescobaldo –
    2080Orlando
    Frisking again? Pacheco!
    Lodovico
    Uds-so, Pacheco! We始ll have some sport with this warrant; 始tis to apprehend all suspected persons in the house. Besides, there始s one Bots, a pander, and one Madam Horseleech, a bawd, that have abused my friend; those two 2085conies will we ferret into the purse-net.
    Orlando
    Let me alone for dabbing them o始th始 neck. Come, come.
    Lodovico
    Do ye hear, gallants? Meet me anon at Mattheo始s.
    Carolo, Astolfo, Beraldo, and Fontinell
    Enough.
    Exeunt Lodovido and Orlando.
    [Speaking aside to Infelice]
    Th始old fellow sings that note thou didst before,
    Only his tunes are that she is no whore,
    But that she sent his letters and his gifts
    Out of a noble triumph o始er his lust,
    To show she trampled his assaults in dust.
    2095Infelice
    始Tis a good, honest servant, that old man.
    I doubt no less.
    Infelice
    And it may be my husband,
    Because when once this woman was unmasked
    He levelled all her thoughts and made them fit,
    2100Now he始d mar all again to try his wit.
    It may be so, too, for to turn a harlot
    Honest it must be by strong antidotes:
    始Tis rare, as to see panthers change their spots.
    And when she始s once a star fixed and shines bright,
    2105Though 始twere impiety then to dim her light,
    Because we see such tapers seldom burn,
    Yet 始tis the pride and glory of some men
    To change her to a blazing star again;
    And it may be Hippolito does no more.
    2110[Aloud to the Gentlemen] It cannot be but you始re acquainted all
    With that same madness of our son-in-law,
    That dotes so on a courtesan.
    Carolo, Astolfo, Beraldo, and Fontinell
    Yes, my lord.
    Carolo
    All the city thinks he始s a whoremonger.
    2115Astolfo
    Yet I warrant he始ll swear no man marks him.
    Beraldo
    始Tis like so, for when a man goes a-wenching is as if he had a strong stinking breath; everyone smells him out, yet he feels it not, though it be ranker than the sweat of sixteen bearwarders.
    I doubt, then, you have all those stinking breaths;
    You might be all smelt out.
    Carolo
    Troth, my lord, I think we are all as you ha始 been in your youth when you went a-maying; we all love to hear the cuckoo sing upon other men始s trees.
    It始s well yet you confess.
    [To Infelice] But, girl, thy bed
    Shall not be parted with a courtesan. –
    始Tis strange!
    No frown of mine, no frown of the poor lady –
    My abused child, his wife – no care of fame,
    Of honour, heaven or hell, no not that name
    2130Of common strumpet, can affright or woo
    Him to abandon her. The harlot does undo him;
    She has bewitched him, robbed him of his shape,
    Turned him into a beast. His reason始s lost.
    You see he looks wild, does he not?
    2135Carolo
    I ha始 noted
    New moons in始s face, my lord, all full of change.
    He始s no more like unto Hippolito
    Than dead men are to living – never sleeps,
    Or if he do, it始s dreams; and in those dreams
    2140His arms work, and then cries ‘Sweet –始 What始s her name?
    [To Astolfo] What始s the drab始s name?
    Astolfo
    In troth, my lord, I know not;
    I know no drabs, not I.
    Duke
    O, Bellafront!
    2145And catching her fast cries ‘My Bellafront!始
    Carolo
    A drench that始s able to kill a horse cannot kill this disease of smock-smelling, my lord, if it have once eaten deep.
    I始ll try all physic, and this med始cine first:
    2150I have directed warrants strong and peremptory –
    To purge our city Milan, and to cure
    The outward parts, the suburbs – for the attaching
    Of all those women who, like gold, want weight.
    Cities, like ships, should have no idle freight.
    2155Carolo
    No, my lord, and light wenches are no idle freight. But what始s your Grace始s reach in this?
    This, Carolo: if she whom my son dotes on
    Be in that muster-book enrolled, he始ll shame
    Ever t始approach one of such noted name.
    2160Carolo
    But say she be not?
    Duke
    Yet on harlots始 heads
    New laws shall fall so heavy, and such blows
    Shall give to those that haunt them, that Hippolito,
    If not for fear of law, for love to her,
    2165If he love truly, shall her bed forbear.
    Carolo
    Attach all the light heels i始th始 city and clap 始em up? Why, my lord, you dive into a well unsearchable. All the whores within the walls, and without the walls? I would not be he should meddle with them for ten such dukedoms; 2170the army that you speak on is able to fill all the prisons within this city, and to leave not a drinking-room in any tavern besides.
    They only shall be caught that are of note;
    Harlots in each street flow.
    2175The fish being thus i始th始 net, ourself will sit,
    And with eye most severe dispose of it. –
    Come, girl.
    [Exeunt Duke and Infelice.]
    Carolo
    Arraign the poor whore!
    Astolfo
    I始ll not miss that sessions.
    Fontinell
    Nor I.
    2180Beraldo
    Nor I, though I hold up my hand there myself.
    Exeunt.