Digital Renaissance Editions

About this text

  • Title: The Honest Whore, Part 2 (Quarto 1, 1630)
  • 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
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Honest Whore, Part 2 (Quarto 1, 1630)

    The Honest Whore.
    My Vizard is on, now to this maske. Say I should shaue off
    this Honor of an old man, or tye it vp shorter; Well, I will
    spoyle a good face for once. My beard being off, how should
    460I looke? euen like
    A Winter Cuckoo, or vnfeatherd Owle;
    Yet better lose this haire, then lose her soule. Exit.

    Enter Candido, Lodouico, and Carolo. Lodouico other
    Guests, and Bride with Prentises.

    465Cand. O Gentlemen, so late, y'are very welcome, pray
    sit downe.
    Lod. Carolo, did'st ere see such a nest of Caps?
    Asto. Me thinkes
    It's a most ciuill and most comely sight.
    470Lod. What does he 'ith middle looke like?
    Asto. Troth like a spire steeple in a Country Village
    ouerpeering so many thatcht houses.
    Lod. It's rather a long pike staffe against so many buck-
    lers without pikes; they sit for all the world like a paire of
    475Organs, and hee's the tall great roaring pipe'ith middest.
    Asto. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
    Cand. What's that you laugh at, Signiors?
    Lod. Troth shall I tell you, and aloude Ile tell it,
    We laugh to see (yet laugh we not in scorne)
    480Amongst so many Caps that long Hat worne.
    Lodo. Mine is as tall a felt as any is this day in Millan, and
    therefore I loue it, for the blocke was cleft out for my head,
    and fits me to a haire.
    Cand. Indeed you are good obseruers, it shewes strange.
    485But Gentlemen, I pray neither contemne,
    Nor yet deride a ciuill ornament;
    I could build so much in the round Caps praise,
    That loue this hye roofe, I this flat would raise.
    Lod. Prethee sweet Bridegrome doo't.
    490Cand. So all these guests will pardon me, Ile doo't.
    Omnes. With all our hearts.
    Cand.