Eyre. O my liege, this honour you have done to my fine journeyman here, Rowland Lacy, and all these favours which you have shown to me this day in my poor house, will make Simon Eyre live longer by one dozen of warm summers more than he should.
Eyre. I thank your majesty.
Marg. God bless your grace!
King. Lincoln, a word with you!
Enter Hodge, Firk, Ralph, and more Shoemakers.
Eyre. How now, my mad knaves? Peace, speak softly, yonder is the king.
King. My mad lord mayor, are all these shoemakers?
Eyre. All shoemakers, my liege; all gentlemen of the gentle craft, true Trojans, courageous cordwainers; they all kneel to the shrine of holy Saint Hugh.
All the Shoemakers. God save your majesty!
King. Mad Simon, would they anything with us?
Eyre. Mum, mad knaves! Not a word! I’ll do’t; I warrant you. They are all beggars, my liege; all for themselves, and I for them all on both my knees do entreat, that for the honour of poor Simon Eyre and the good of his brethren, these mad knaves, your grace would vouchsafe some privilege to my new Leadenhall, that it may be lawful for us to buy and sell leather there two days a week.
All. Jesus bless your grace!
Eyre. In the name of these my poor brethren shoemakers, I most humbly thank your grace. But before I rise, seeing you are in the giving vein and we in the begging, grant Sim Eyre one boon more.
King. What is it, my lord mayor?
Eyre. Vouchsafe to taste of a poor banquet that stands sweetly waiting for your sweet presence.
Eyre. O my dear king, Sim Eyre was taken unawares upon a day of shroving,[118] which I promised long ago to the prentices of London.
Gave me my breakfast, and I swore then by the stopple of my tankard, if ever I came to be lord mayor of London, I would feast all the prentices. This day, my liege, I did it, and the slaves had an hundred tables five times covered; they are gone home and vanished;
Between the publication of the first, and of the second, parts of The Honest Whore, a quarter of a century passed. The first part appeared in 1604, having the sub-title “With the Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing Wife.” In 1630 followed the second part, in which the sub-title is further expanded:—“With the Humours of the Patient Man, the Impatient Wife: the Honest Whore, persuaded by strong arguments to turne Courtesan again: her brave refuting those Arguments.—And lastly, the Comical Passages of an Italian Bridewell, where the scene ends.” Both title-pages give Dekker’s name alone as author, although from a passage in Henslow’s Diary, we learn that Middleton collaborated with him in the play.
It is impossible now to decide exactly what Middleton’s share was, but it was certainly not inconsiderable. Mr. Bullen points out, in his introduction to Middleton’s works, the close resemblance between the scene where Bellafront prepares for her visitors, and the first scene in the 3rd Act of Middleton’s Michaelmas Term; but this play did not appear until three years after the first part of Dekker’s. Still the fact of Middleton’s repeating the scene, goes to show that he had some special share in it, and certain other scenes in the first part are somewhat reminiscent of his style, as those in Acts I. and III., indicated by Mr. Bullen, where the gallants try to irritate Candido. The second part contains nothing that I should be inclined to allot to Middleton, agreeing in this with Mr. Swinburne, who remarks that it “seems so thoroughly of one piece and pattern, so apparently the result of one man’s invention and composition, that without more positive evidence I should hesitate to assign a share in it to any colleague of the poet under whose name it first appeared.” Mr. J. Addington Symonds has conjectured that the work as a whole has “the movement of one of Middleton’s acknowledged plays,” and it is possible that the main direction of the plot may have owed something to his more restraining dramatic sense of form. However this may be, the essential heart and spirit of the play are Dekker’s beyond all question. Bellafront, Matheo, Friscobaldo, Candido, are creatures not to be mistaken; and their interplay is managed throughout in Dekker’s individual manner. The source whence these, with the rest of the characters and episodes of the play, have been derived, has not been discovered: they were no doubt transcribed from life, and their secret lies hidden probably in Dekker’s brain alone.
“There is in the second part of The Honest Whore, where Bellafront, a reclaimed harlot, recounts some of the miseries of her profession, a simple picture of honour and shame, contrasted without violence, and expressed without immodesty, which is worth all the strong lines against the harlot’s profession, with which both parts of this play are offensively crowded. A satirist is always to be suspected, who, to make vice odious, dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of relish and retrospective fondness. But so near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions, which in his unregenerate state served but to inflame his appetites, in his new province of a moralist will serve him, a little turned, to expose the enormity of those appetites in other men.”—C. Lamb: Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.
THE HONEST WHORE.
Part the First.
Enter at one side a Funeral (a coronet lying on the hearse, scutcheon and garlands hanging on the sides), attended by Gasparo Trebazzi, Duke of Milan, Castruchio, Sinezi, Pioratto, Fluello, and others. At the other side enter Hippolito, and Matheo labouring to hold him back.
Cas., Sin. On afore there, ho!
[Exeunt with hearse, all except the Duke, Hippolito and Matheo.
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.] S’blood, 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 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 mettle 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 Alicant,[120] 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. Oh! 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.
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.
Mat. Strange feeders they are indeed, my lord, and, like your jester, or young courtier, will enter upon any man’s trencher without bidding.
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.
Mat. If you have this strange monster, honesty, in your belly, why so jig-makers[122] and chroniclers shall pick something out of you; but an I smell not you and a bawdy house 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 aforenamed. [Exeunt.
Enter Fustigo in some fantastic Sea-suit, meeting a Porter.
Fus. How now, porter, will she come?
Por. If I may trust a woman, sir, she will come.
Fus. There’s for thy pains [Gives money]. Godamercy, if ever I stand in need of a wench that will come with a wet finger,[123] porter, thou shalt earn my money before any clarissimo[124] in Milan; yet, so God sa’ me, she’s mine own sister body and soul, as I am a Christian gentleman; farewell; I’ll ponder till she come: thou hast been no bawd in fetching this woman, I assure thee.
Por. No matter if I had, sir, better men than porters are bawds.
Fus. O God, sir, many that have borne offices. But, porter, art sure thou went’st into a true house?
Por. I think so, for I met with no thieves.
Fus. Nay, but art sure it was my sister, Viola.
Por. I am sure, by all superscriptions, it was the party you ciphered.
Fus. Not very tall?
Por. Nor very low; a middling woman.
Fus. ’Twas she, ’faith, ’twas she, a pretty plump cheek, like mine?
Por. At a blush a little, very much like you.
Fus. Godso, I would not for a ducat she had kicked up her heels, for I ha’ spent an abomination this voyage, marry, I did it amongst sailors and gentlemen. There’s a little modicum more, porter, for making thee stay [Gives money]; farewell, honest porter.
Por. I am in your debt, sir; God preserve you.
Fus. Not so, neither, good porter. [Exit Porter.] God’s lid, yonder she comes. [Enter Viola.] Sister Viola, I am glad to see you stirring: it’s news to have me here, is’t not, sister?
Vio. Yes, trust me; I wondered who should be so bold to send for me: you are welcome to Milan, brother.
Fus. Troth, sister, I heard you were married to a very rich chuff,[125] and I was very sorry for it, that I had no better clothes, and that made me send; for you know we Milaners love to strut upon Spanish leather. And how do all our friends?
Vio. Very well; you ha’ travelled enough now, I trow, to sow your wild oats.
Fus. A pox on ’em! wild oats? I ha’ not an oat to throw at a horse. Troth, sister, I ha’ sowed my oats, and reaped two hundred ducats if I had ’em here. Marry, I must entreat you to lend me some thirty or forty till the ship come: by this hand, I’ll discharge at my day, by this hand.
Vio. These are your old oaths.
Fus. Why, sister, do you think I’ll forswear my hand?
Vio. Well, well, you shall have them: put yourself into better fashion, because I must employ you in a serious matter.
Fus. I’ll sweat like a horse if I like the matter.
Vio. You ha’ cast off all your old swaggering humours?
Fus. I had not sailed a league in that great fishpond, the sea, but I cast up my very gall.
Vio. I am the more sorry, for I must employ a true swaggerer.
Fus. Nay by this iron, sister, they shall find I am powder and touch-box, if they put fire once into me.
Vio. Then lend me your ears.
Fus. Mine ears are yours, dear sister.
Vio. I am married to a man that has wealth enough, and wit enough.
Fus. A linen-draper, I was told, sister.
Vio. Very true, a grave citizen, I want nothing that a wife can wish from a husband: but here’s the spite, he has not all the things belonging to a man.
Fus. God’s my life, he’s a very mandrake,[126] or else (God bless us) one a’ these whiblins,[127] and that’s worse, and then all the children that he gets lawfully of your body, sister, are bastards by a statute.
Vio. O, you run over me too fast, brother; I have heard it often said, that he who cannot be angry is no man. I am sure my husband is a man in print, for all things else save only in this, no tempest can move him.
Fus. ’Slid, would he had been at sea with us! he should ha’ been moved, and moved again, for I’ll be sworn, la, our drunken ship reeled like a Dutchman.
Vio. No loss of goods can increase in him a wrinkle, no crabbed language make his countenance sour, the stubbornness of no servant shake him; he has no more gall in him than a dove, no more sting than an ant; musician will he never be, yet I find much music in him, but he loves no frets, and is so free from anger, that many times I am ready to bite off my tongue, because it wants that virtue which all women’s tongues have, to anger their husbands: brother, mine can by no thunder, turn him into a sharpness.
Fus. Belike his blood, sister, is well brewed then.
Vio. I protest to thee, Fustigo, I love him most affectionately; but I know not—I ha’ such a tickling within me—such a strange longing; nay, verily I do long.
Fus. Then you’re with child, sister, by all signs and tokens; nay, I am partly a physician, and partly something else. I ha’ read Albertus Magnus, and Aristotle’s Problems.
Vio. You’re wide a’ th’ bow hand[128] still, brother: my longings are not wanton, but wayward: I long to have my patient husband eat up a whole porcupine, to the intent, the bristling quills may stick about his lips like a Flemish mustachio, and be shot at me: I shall be leaner the new moon, unless I can make him horn-mad.
Fus. ’Sfoot, half a quarter of an hour does that; make him a cuckold.
Vio. Pooh, he would count such a cut no unkindness.
Fus. The honester citizen he; then make him drunk and cut off his beard.
Vio. Fie, fie, idle, idle! he’s no Frenchman, to fret at the loss of a little scald[129] hair. No, brother, thus it shall be—you must be secret.
Fus. As your mid-wife, I protest, sister, or a barber-surgeon.
Vio. Repair to the Tortoise here in St. Christopher’s Street; I will send you money; turn yourself into a brave man: instead of the arms of your mistress, let your sword and your military scarf hang about your neck.
Fus. I must have a great horseman’s French feather too, sister.
Vio. O, by any means, to show your light head, else your hat will sit like a coxcomb: to be brief, you must be in all points a most terrible wide-mouthed swaggerer.
Fus. Nay, for swaggering points let me alone.
Vio. Resort then to our shop, and, in my husband’s presence, kiss me, snatch rings, jewels, or any thing, so you give it back again, brother, in secret.
Fus. By this hand, sister.
Vio. Swear as if you came but new from knighting.
Fus. Nay, I’ll swear after four-hundred a year.
Vio. Swagger worse than a lieutenant among fresh-water soldiers, call me your love, your ingle,[130] your cousin, or so; but sister at no hand.
Fus. No, no, it shall be cousin, or rather coz; that’s the gulling word between the citizens’ wives and their mad-caps that man ’em to the garden; to call you one a’ mine aunts’[131] sister, were as good as call you arrant whore; no, no, let me alone to cousin you rarely.
Vio. H’as heard I have a brother, but never saw him, therefore put on a good face.
Fus. The best in Milan, I warrant.
Vio. Take up wares, but pay nothing, rifle my bosom, my pocket, my purse, the boxes for money to dice with; but, brother, you must give all back again in secret.
Fus. By this welkin that here roars I will, or else let me never know what a secret is: why, sister, do you think I’ll cony-catch[132] you, when you are my cousin? God’s my life, then I were a stark ass. If I fret not his guts, beg me for a fool.[133]
Vio. Be circumspect, and do so then. Farewell.
Fus. The Tortoise, sister! I’ll stay there; forty ducats.
Enter the Duke, Doctor Benedict, and two Servants.
[A curtain is drawn back and Infelice discovered lying on a couch.