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    Not Peer Reviewed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.
    You should be mens blisse, but you proue their rods.
    1225Were there no women, men might liue like gods:
    You ha beene too much downe already, rise,
    Get from my sight, and henceforth shun my bed,
    Ile with no Strumpets breath be poysoned.
    As for your Irish Lubrican, that spirit
    1230Whom by prepostrous charmes thy lust hath raised
    In a wrong Circle, him Ile damne more blacke
    Then any Tyrants soule.
    Infae. Hipollito?
    Hip. Tell me, didst thou baite Hawkes to draw him to
    1235thee, or did he bewitch thee?
    Infae. The slaue did woo me.
    Hip. Two wooes in that Skreech-owles language? Oh
    who would trust your corcke-heeld sex? I thinke to sate
    your lust, you would loue a Horse, a Beare, a croaking Toade,
    1240so your hot itching veines might haue their bound, then the
    wild Irish Dart was throwne. Come, how? the manner of
    this fight.
    Infae. 'Twas thus, he gaue me this battery first. Oh I
    Mistake, beleeue me, all this in beaten gold:
    1245Yet I held out, but at length this was charm'd.
    What? change your Diamond wench, the act is base,
    Common, but foule, so shall not your disgrace:
    Could not I feed your appetite? Oh Men,
    You were created Augels, pure and faire,
    1250But since the first fell, worse then Deuils you are.
    You should our shields be, but you proue our rods.
    Were there no Men, Women might liue like gods.
    Guilty my Lord?
    Hip. Yes, guilty my good Lady.
    1255Infae. Nay, you may laugh, but henceforth shun my bed,
    With no whores leauings Ile be poysoned. Exit.
    Hip. O're-reach'd so finely? 'Tis the very Diamond
    And Letter which I sent: this villany
    Some Spider closely weaues, whose poysond bulke
    1260I must let forth. Who's there without?
    E 3 Seruant.