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  • 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    Not Peer Reviewed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.
    Hip. Your hand, Ile offer you faire play: When first
    1880We met i'th Lists together, you remember
    You were a common Rebell; with one parlee
    I won you to come in.
    Bel. You did.
    Hip. Ile try
    1885If now I can beate downe this Chastity
    With the same Ordnance; will you yeeld this Fort,
    If with the power of Argument now (as then)
    I get of you the conquest: as before
    I turnd you honest, now to turne you whore,
    1890By force of strong perswasion?
    Bell. If you can,
    I yeeld.
    Hip. The allarm's strucke vp: I'm your man.
    Bel. A woman giues defiance.
    1895Hip. Sit.
    Bel. Beginne:
    'Tis a braue battaile to encounter sinne.
    Hip. You men that are to fight in the same warre,
    To which I'm prest, and pleade at the same barre,
    1900To winne a woman, if you wud haue me speed,
    Send all your wishes.
    Bel. No doubt y'are heard, proceede.
    Hip. To be a Harlot, that you stand vpon,
    The very name's a charme to make you one.
    1905Harlot was a Dame of so diuine
    And rauishing touch, that she was Concubine
    To an English King: her sweet bewitching eye
    Did the Kings heart-strings in such loue-knots tye,
    That euen the coyest was proud when she could heare
    1910Men say, Behold; another Harlot there;
    And after her all women that were faire
    Were Harlots call'd, as to this day some are:
    Besides her dalliance, she so well does mix,
    That she's in Latine call'd the Meretrix.
    1915Thus for the name; for the profession, this,
    Who