Digital Renaissance Editions

About this text

  • Title: The Whore of Babylon (Quarto, 1607)
  • Editors: Frances E. Dolan, Anna Pruitt

  • 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
    Editors: Frances E. Dolan, Anna Pruitt
    Not Peer Reviewed

    The Whore of Babylon (Quarto, 1607)

    The Whore of Babylon.
    3. Card. Nor vs.
    1. Card. It is not strong of poyson, to fetch vp
    Thats bak't within: my gall is ouerflowne,
    My blood growne ranke and fowle: An inflamation
    195Of rage, and madnes so burnes vp my liuer,
    That euen my heart- strings cracke (as in a furnace)
    And all my nerues into my eye-balles shrinke,
    To shoot those bullets, and my braines at once
    Again st her soule that ha's halfe dambd vs: falls
    200Fetcht hie, and neare to heauen, light on no ground,
    But in hels bottome, take their fir st rebound.
    2. Card. Such are our falles: we once had mountaine-growth,
    With Pines and Cedars.
    3. Card. Now with none of both.
    205 1. Card. I could be glad to loose the diuine office
    Of my creation, to be turn'd into
    A dogge, so I might licke vp but her blood,
    That thru sts vs from our vineyards.
    Tres. So could all.
    210 4. Card. Reuenge were milke to vs.
    2. Card. Manna.
    1. Card. And it shall.
    But how? wee will not (as the head supreame
    Ouer all nations, counselleth) licke the du st
    215The Faierie treads on, nor (like serpents) creepe
    Vpon our bellies in humilitie:
    This were (with Fencers) basely to giue ground,
    When the fir st bowt may speed: or to sound parly,
    Whil st they within, get swords to cut our throats:
    220No, weele at one blow strike the heart through.
    Tres. How?
    2. Card. By ponyards.
    1. Card. No.
    3. Card. Poyson.
    225 1. Card. No.
    4. Card. Treason.
    1. Card. Neither.
    2. Card.
    B2