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)

    2388.1[5.1]
    Enter at one door Hippolito; at another Lodovico, Astolfo, 2390Carolo, Beraldo, [and] Fontinell.
    Lodovico
    [To his companions] Yonderʼs the lord Hippolito. By any means leave him and me together. Now will I turn him to a madman.
    Astolfo, Carolo, Beraldo, and Fontinell
    Save you, my lord.
    Exeunt [all but Lodovico and Hippolito].
    Lodovico
    I haʼ strange news to tell you.
    2395Hippolito
    What are they?
    Lodovico
    Your mareʼs iʼthʼ pound.
    Hippolito
    Howʼs this?
    Lodovico
    Your nightingale is in a lime-bush.
    Hippolito
    Ha?
    2400Lodovico
    Your puritanical Honest Whore sits in a blue gown.
    Hippolito
    Blue gown?
    Lodovico
    Sheʼll chalk out your way to her now; she beats chalk.
    Hippolito
    Where? Who dares –
    2405Lodovico
    Do you know the brick house of castigation, by the river side that runs by Milan – the school where they pronounce no letter well but O?
    Hippolito
    I know it not.
    Lodovico
    Any man that has borne office of constable, or any 2410woman that has fallen from a horse-load to a cart-load, or like an old hen that has had none but rotten eggs in her nest, can direct you to her.
    There you shall see your punk amongst her backfriends.
    There you may have her at your will,
    For there she beats chalk or grinds in the mill,
    With 2415a whip deedle, deedle, deedle, deedle;
    Ah, little monkey!
    Hippolito
    What rogue durst serve that warrant, knowing I loved her?
    Lodovico
    Some worshipful rascal, I lay my life.
    Hippolito
    Iʼll beat the lodgings down about their ears
    2420That are her keepers.
    Lodovico
    So you may bring an old house over her head.
    Hippolito
    Iʼll to her –
    Iʼll to her, stood armèd fiends to guard the doors!
    Exit.
    Lodovico
    O me! What monsters are men made by whores? 2425If this false fire do kindle him, thereʼs one faggot more to the bonfire. Now to my Bridewell birds. What song will they sing?
    Exit.