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    Not Peer Reviewed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.
    Who liues in bondage, liues lac'd, the chiefe blisse
    This world below can yeeld, is liberty:
    And who (than whores) with looser wings dare flie?
    As Iunoes proud bird spreads the fairest taile,
    1920So does a Strumpet hoist the loftiest saile.
    She's no mans slaue; (men are her slaues) her eye
    Moues not on wheeles screwd vp with Iealowsie.
    She (Horst, or Coacht) does merry iourneys make,
    Free as the Sunne in his gilt Zodiake:
    1925As brauely does she shine, as fast she's driuen,
    But staies not long in any house of Heauen:
    But shifts from Signe, to Signe, her amorous prizes
    More rich being when she's downe, then when she rizes.
    In briefe, Gentlemen haunt them, Soldiers fight for them,
    1930Few men but know them, few or none abhorre them:
    Thus (for sport sake) speake I, as to a woman,
    Whom (as the worst ground) I would turne to common:
    But you I would enclose for mine owne bed.
    Bel. So should a husband be dishonoured.
    1935Hip. Dishonoured? not a whit: to fall to one
    (Besides your husband) is to fall to none,
    For one no number is.
    Bel. Faith, should you take
    One in your bed, would you that reckoning make?
    1940'Tis time you sound retreate.
    Hip. Say, haue I wonne,
    Is the day ours?
    Bel. The battaile's but halfe done,
    None but your selfe haue yet sounded alarmes,
    1945Let vs strike too, else you dishonour armes.
    Hip. If you can win the day,
    The glorie's yours.
    Bel. To proue a woman should not be a whore,
    When she was made, she had one man, and no more,
    1950Yet she was tied to lawes then, for (ouen than)
    'Tis said, she was not made for men, but man.
    Anon, t'increase earths brood, the law was varied,
    Men