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    Not Peer Reviewed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.
    Orl. Fleaing call you it?
    Mat. Ile pawne you by'th Lord, to your very eye-browes.
    Bel. With all my heart, since heauen will haue me poore,
    1335As good he drown'd at sea, as drown'd at shore.
    Orl. Why heare you, sir? yfaith doe not make away her
    Gowne.
    Mat. Oh it's Summer, it's Summer; your onely fashion
    for a woman now, is to be light, to be light.
    1340Orl. Why, pray sir, employ some of that money you haue
    of mine.
    Mat. Thine? Ile starue first, Ile beg first; when I touch a
    penny of that, let these fingers ends rot.
    Orl. So they may, for that's past touching. I saw my
    1345twenty pounds flye hie.
    Mat. Knowest thou neuer a damn'd Broker about the
    Citty?
    Orl. Damn'd Broker? yes, fiue hundred.
    Mat. The Gowne stood me in aboue twenty Duckets,
    1350borrow ten of it, cannot liue without siluer.
    Orl. Ile make what I can of it, sir, Ile be your Broker,
    But not your damb'd broker: Oh thou scuruy knaue,
    What makes a wife turne whore, but such a slaue? Exit.
    Mat. How now little chicke, what aylest, weeping
    1355For a handfull of Taylors shreds? pox on them, are there
    not silkes enow at Mercers?
    Bel I care not for gay feathers, I.
    Mat. What doest care for then? why doest grieue?
    Bel. Why doe I grieue? A thousand sorrowes strike
    1360At one poore heart, and yet it liues. Matheo,
    Thou art a Gamester, prethee throw at all,
    Set all vpon one cast, we kneele and pray,
    And struggle for life, yet must be cast away.
    Meet misery quickly then, split all, sell all,
    1365And when thou hast sold all, spend it, but I beseech thee
    Build not thy mind on me to coyne thee more,
    To get it wouldst thou haue me play the whore?
    Mat. 'Twas your profession before I married you.
    Bel.