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This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Footnotes have been gathered at end of the text.
In Volume 1 of this work, the editor provided a section of ‘Addendum and
Corrigendum’, with errata of the following volumes, including this. The
errata for Volume 3 have been copied from that volume for straightfoward
reference, and are included in the transcriber’s endnotes.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see
the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the
handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
THE WORKS
OF
THOMAS MIDDLETON.
--------------
VOL. III.
CONTAINING
THE HONEST WHORE. (PART I.)
THE HONEST WHORE. (PART II.)
THE WITCH.
THE WIDOW.
A FAIR QUARREL.
MORE DISSEMBLERS BESIDES WOMEN.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN,
46 St. Martin’s Lane.
THE WORKS
OF
THOMAS MIDDLETON,
=Now first collected,=
WITH
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR,
AND
NOTES,
BY
THE REVEREND ALEXANDER DYCE.
---------------------
_IN FIVE VOLUMES._
VOL. III.
--------------
LONDON:
EDWARD LUMLEY, CHANCERY LANE.
---
1840.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE HONEST WHORE.
(PART FIRST.)
_The Honest Whore, with, The Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing
Wife. Tho: Dekker. London Printed by V. S. for John Hodgets, and are to be
solde at his shop in Paules church-yard._ 1604. 4to. Other eds. in
1605,[1] 1615, 1616, 1635, 4to.
It has also been reprinted (with the grossest and most unpardonable
incorrectness) in the various editions of Dodsley’s _Old Plays_, vol. iii.
This drama (both First and Second Parts) ought to have occupied an earlier
station among our author’s works. I originally rejected it, because the
name of Dekker alone appears on the title-page; but I have since felt
convinced that, with such authority for ascribing a portion of it to
Middleton as that of Henslowe in the following entry, I should not be
justified in excluding it from the present collection:
“March 1602-3. The Patient Man and Honest Whore, by Thomas Dekker and
_Thomas Middleton_.” Malone’s _Shakespeare_ (by Boswell), vol. iii. p.
328.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
GASPARO TREBAZZI, _duke of Milan_.
HIPPOLITO, _a count_.
CASTRUCHIO.
SINEZI.
PIORATTO.
FLUELLO.
MATHEO.
BENEDICT, _a doctor_.
ANSELMO, _a friar_.
FUSTIGO, _brother to Viola_.
CANDIDO, _a linen-draper_.
GEORGE, _his servant_.
_First Prentice._
_Second Prentice._
CRAMBO.
POH.
ROGER, _servant to Bellafront_.
_Porter._
_Sweeper._
_Madmen, Servants, &c._
INFELICE, _daughter to the duke_.
BELLAFRONT, _a harlot_.
VIOLA, _wife to Candido_.
MISTRESS FINGERLOCK, _a bawd_.
Scene, MILAN, and the neighbourhood.
THE HONEST WHORE.
--------------
ACT I. SCENE I.
_A Street._
_Enter a funeral, a coronet lying on the hearse,
scutcheons and garlands hanging on the sides,
attended by_ GASPARO TREBAZZI, _Duke of Milan_,
CASTRUCHIO, SINEZI, PIORATTO, FLUELLO, _and others:_
HIPPOLITO _meeting them, and_ MATHEO _labouring to
hold him back_.
DUKE. Behold, yon comet shews his head again!
Twice hath he thus at cross-turns thrown on us
Prodigious[2] looks; twice hath he troubled
The waters of our eyes: see, he’s turn’d wild:—
Go on, in God’s name.
CAS. } On afore there, ho!
SIN., _&c._ }
DUKE. Kinsmen and friends, take from your manly sides
Your weapons, to keep back the desperate boy
From doing violence to the innocent dead.
HIP. I prithee, dear Matheo—--
MAT. Come, you’re mad!
HIP. I do arrest thee, murderer! Set down,
Villains, set down that sorrow, ’tis all mine!
DUKE. I do beseech you all, for my blood’s sake,
Send hence your milder spirits, and let wrath
Join in confederacy with your weapons’ points;
If he proceed to vex us, let your swords
Seek out his bowels; funeral grief loathes words.
CAS. } Set on.
SIN., _&c._ }
HIP. Set down the body!
MAT. O my lord,
You’re wrong! I’ th’ open street? you see she’s dead.
HIP. I know she is not dead.
DUKE. Frantic young man,
Wilt thou believe these gentlemen?—Pray, speak—
Thou dost abuse my child, and mock’st the tears
That here are shed for her: if to behold
Those roses wither’d that set out her cheeks;
That pair of stars that gave her body light
Darken’d and dim for ever; all those rivers
That fed her veins with warm and crimson streams
Frozen and dried up; if these be signs of death,
Then is she dead. Thou unreligious youth,
Art not asham’d to empty all these eyes
Of funeral tears, a debt due to the dead,
As mirth is to the living? sham’st thou not
To have them stare on thee? Hark, thou art curs’d
Even to thy face, by those that scarce can speak!
HIP. My lord——
DUKE. What wouldst thou have? is she not dead?
HIP. O, you ha’ kill’d her by your cruelty!
DUKE. Admit I had, thou kill’st her now again,
And art more savage than a barbarous Moor.
HIP. Let me but kiss her pale and bloodless lip.
DUKE. O fie, fie, fie!
HIP. Or if not touch her, let me look on her.
MAT. As you regard your honour——
HIP. Honour? smoke!
MAT. Or if you lov’d her living, spare her now.
DUKE. Ay, well done, sir; you play the gentleman—
Steal hence;—’tis nobly done;—away;—I’ll join
My force to yours, to stop this violent torrent[3]—
Pass on.
[_Exeunt with hearse, all except the Duke_,
HIPPOLITO, _and_ MATHEO.
HIP. Matheo, thou dost wound me more.
MAT. I give you physic, noble friend, not wounds.
DUKE. O, well said, well done, a true gentleman!
Alack, I know the sea of lovers’ rage
Comes rushing with so strong a tide, it beats
And bears down all respects of life, of honour,
Of friends, of foes! Forget her, gallant youth.
HIP. Forget her?
DUKE. Nay, nay, be but patient;
For why death’s hand hath sued a strict divorce
’Twixt her and thee: what’s beauty but a corse?
What but fair sand-dust are earth’s purest forms?
Queens’ bodies are but trunks to put in worms.
MAT. Speak no more sentences, my good lord, but slip
hence; you see they are but fits; I’ll rule him, I
warrant ye. Ay, so, tread gingerly; your grace is here
somewhat too long already. [_Exit Duke._]—’Sblood, the
jest were now, if, having ta’en some knocks o’ th’ pate
already, he should get loose again, and, like a mad ox,
toss my new black cloaks into the kennel. I must humour
his lordship. [_Aside._]—My lord Hippolito, is it in
your stomach to go to dinner?
HIP. Where is the body?
MAT. The body, as the duke spake very wisely, is gone to
be wormed.
HIP. I cannot rest; I’ll meet it at next turn: I’ll see
how my love looks.
[MATHEO _holds_ HIPPOLITO _back_.
MAT. How your love looks? worse than a scarecrow.
Wrestle not with me; the great fellow gives the fall,
for a ducat.
HIP. I shall forget myself.
MAT. Pray, do so; leave yourself behind yourself, and go
whither you will. ’Sfoot, do you long to have base
rogues, that maintain a Saint Anthony’s fire in their
noses by nothing but twopenny ale, make ballads of you?
If the duke had but so much metal in him as is in a
cobbler’s awl, he would ha’ been a vexed thing; he and
his train had blown you up, but that their powder has
taken the wet of cowards: you’ll bleed three pottles of
Aligant,[4] by this light, if you follow ’em; and then
we shall have a hole made in a wrong place, to have
surgeons roll thee up, like a baby, in swaddling clouts.
HIP. What day is to-day, Matheo?
MAT. Yea, marry, this is an easy question: why, to-day
is—let me see—Thursday.
HIP. O, Thursday.
MAT. Here’s a coil for a dead commodity! ’sfoot, women
when they are alive are but dead commodities, for you
shall have one woman lie upon many men’s hands.
HIP. She died on Monday then!
MAT. And that’s the most villanous day of all the
week to die in: and she was well and eat a mess of
water-gruel on Monday morning.
HIP. Ay? it cannot be
Such a bright taper should burn out so soon.
MAT. O yes, my lord. So soon? why, I ha’ known them that
at dinner have been as well, and had so much health that
they were glad to pledge it, yet before three a’clock
have been found dead drunk.
HIP. On Thursday buried, and on Monday died!
Quick haste, byrlady;[5] sure her winding-sheet
Was laid out ’fore her body; and the worms,
That now must feast with her, were even bespoke,
And solemnly invited, like strange guests.
MAT. Strange feeders they are indeed, my lord, and like
your jester, or young courtier, will enter upon any
man’s trencher without bidding.
HIP. Curs’d be that day for ever that robb’d her
Of breath and me of bliss! henceforth let it stand
Within the wizard’s book, the calendar,
Mark’d with a marginal finger,[6] to be chosen
By thieves, by villains, and black murderers,
As the best day for them to labour in.
If henceforth this adulterous, bawdy world
Be got with child with treason, sacrilege,
Atheism, rapes, treacherous friendship, perjury,
Slander, the beggar’s sin, lies, sin of fools,
Or any other damn’d impieties,
On Monday let ’em be deliverèd.
I swear to thee, Matheo, by my soul,
Hereafter weekly on that day I’ll glue
Mine eyelids down, because they shall not gaze
On any female cheek; and being lock’d up
In my close chamber, there I’ll meditate
On nothing but my Infelice’s end,
Or on a dead man’s scull draw out mine own.
MAT. You’ll do all these good works now every Monday,
because it is so bad; but I hope upon Tuesday morning I
shall take you with a wench.
HIP. If ever, whilst frail blood through my veins run,
On woman’s beams I throw affection,
Save her that’s dead; or that I loosely fly
To th’ shore of any other wafting eye,
Let me not prosper, heaven! I will be true
Even to her dust and ashes: could her tomb
Stand, whilst I liv’d, so long that it might rot,
That should fall down, but she be ne’er forgot.
MAT. If you have this strange monster, honesty, in your
belly, why, so, jig-makers[7] and chroniclers shall pick
something out of you; but and[8] I smell not you and a
bawdyhouse out within these ten days, let my nose be as
big as an English bag-pudding. I’ll follow your
lordship, though it be to the place afore named.
[_Exeunt._