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    Not Peer Reviewed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.
    Hip. My Whore?
    Mat. I cannot talke, sir, and tell of your Rems, and your
    2605rees, and your whirligigs, and deuices: but, my Lord, I
    found em like Sparrowes in one nest, billing together, and
    bulling of me, I tooke em in bed, was ready to kill him was
    vp to stab her---
    Hip. Cloze thy ranke Iawes: pardon me, I am vexed,
    2610Thou art a Villaine, a malicious Deuill,
    Deepe as the place where thou art lost, thou lyest,
    Since I am thus far got into this storme,
    Ile thorow, and thou shalt see Ile thorow vntoucht.
    When thou shalt perish in it.
    2615Enter Infaelice.
    Infae. 'Tis my cue
    To enter now: roome, let my Prize be plaid,
    I ha lurk'd in Cloudes, yet heard what all haue said,
    What Iury more can proue, she has wrong'd my bed,
    2620Then her owne husband, she must be punished;
    I challenge Law, my Lord, Letters, and Gold, and Iewels
    From my Lord that woman tooke.
    Hip. Against that blacke-mouthed Deuill, against Letters,
    and Gold,
    2625And against a iealous Wife I doe vphold,
    Thus farre her reputation, I could sooner
    Shake the Appenine, and crumble Rockes to dust,
    Then (tho Ioues showre rayned downe) tempt her to lust.
    Bel. What shall I say?
    2630Hee discouers himselfe.
    Orl. Say thou art not a Whore, and that's more then
    fifteene women (amongst fiue hundred) dare sweare with-
    out lying: this shalt thou say, no let mee say't for thee; thy
    Husband's a Knaue, this Lord's an honest Man; thou art no
    2635Puncke, this Lady's a right Lady. Pacheco is a Thiefe as his
    Master is, but old Orlando is as true a man as thy Father is:
    I ha seene you flie hie, sir, & I ha seene you flie low, sir, and to
    keepe you from the Gallowes, sir, a blue Coat haue I worne,
    and a Thiefe did I turne, mine owne men are the Pedlers, my
    K 2 twenty