Bel. Is this your comfort, when so many years
You ha’ left me frozen to death?

Or. Freeze still, starve still!

Bel. Yes, so I shall; I must, I must and will.
If, as you say, I’m poor, relieve me then,
Let me not sell my body to base men.
You call me strumpet; heaven knows I am none;
Your cruelty may drive me to be one:
Let not that sin be yours; let not the shame
Of common whore live longer than my name.
That cunning bawd, Necessity, night and day
Plots to undo me; drive that hag away,
Lest being at lowest ebb, as now I am,
I sink for ever.
Or. Lowest ebb! what ebb?
Bel. So poor, that, though to tell it be my shame,
I am not worth a dish to hold my meat;
I am yet poorer, I want bread to eat.

Or. It’s not seen by your cheeks.

Mat. I think she has read an homily to tickle to the old rogue. [Aside.

Or. Want bread? there’s satin; bake that.

Mat. ’Sblood, make pasties of my clothes?

Or. A fair new cloak, stew that; an excellent gilt rapier——

Mat. Will you eat that, sir?

Or. I could feast ten good fellows with those hangers.[380]

Mat. The pox, you shall!

Or. I shall not, till thou begg’st, think thou art poor;
And when thou begg’st, I’ll feed thee at my door,
As I feed dogs, with bones: till then beg, borrow,
Pawn, steal, and hang; turn bawd when thou’rt no whore.—
My heart-strings sure would crack were they strain’d more. [Aside, and exit.

Mat. This is your father, your damned—confusion light upon all the generation of you! he can come bragging hither with four white herrings at’s tail in blue coats,[381] without roes in their bellies, but I may starve ere he give me so much as a cob.[382]

Bel. What tell you me of this? alas!

Mat. Go, trot after your dad; do you capitulate; I’ll pawn not for you, I’ll not steal to be hanged for such an hypocritical, close, common harlot: away, you dog! Brave, i’faith! udsfoot, give me some meat.

Bel. Yes, sir. [Exit.

Mat. Goodman slave, my man too, is galloped to the devil a’ t’other[383] side: Pacheco, I’ll checo you! Is this your dad’s day? England, they say, is the only hell for horses, and only paradise for women; pray, get you to that paradise, because you’re called an Honest Whore; there they live none but honest whores, with a pox: marry, here in our city all [y]our sex are but footcloth nags;[384] the master no sooner lights but the man leaps into the saddle.

Re-enter Bellafront with meat and drink.

Bel. Will you sit down, I pray, sir?

Mat. [sitting down] I could tear, by th’ Lord, his flesh, and eat his midriff in salt, as I eat this!—must I choke?[385]—my father Friscobaldo, I shall make a pitiful hog-louse of you, Orlando, if you fall once into my fingers.—Here’s the savourest meat! I ha’ got a stomach with chafing.—What rogue should tell him of those two pedlars? a plague choke him and gnaw him to the bare bones!—Come, fill.

Bel. Thou sweat’st with very anger: good sweet, vex not,
'Las, ’tis no fault of mine!

Mat. Where didst buy this mutton? I never felt better ribs.

Bel. A neighbour sent it me.

Re-enter Orlando disguised as a serving-man.

Mat. Ha, neighbour? foh, my mouth stinks!—You whore, do you beg victuals for me? is this satin doublet to be bombasted[386] with broken meat?

[Takes up a stool.

Or. What will you do, sir?

Mat. Beat out the brains of a beggarly——

Or. Beat out an ass’s head of your own.—Away, mistress! [Exit Bellafront.]—Zounds, do but touch one hair of her, and I’ll so quilt your cap with old iron, that your coxcomb shall ache the worse these seven years for’t: does she look like a roasted rabbit, that you must have the head for the brains?

Mat. Ha, ha! go out of my doors, you rogue; away, four marks;[387] trudge.

Or. Four marks? no, sir; my twenty pound that you ha’ made fly high, and I am gone.

Mat. Must I be fed with chippings? you’re best get a clapdish,[388] and say you’re proctor to some spittle-house: where hast thou been, Pacheco? come hither, my little turkey-cock.

Or. I cannot abide, sir, to see a woman wronged, not I.

Mat. Sirrah, here was my father-in-law to-day.

Or. Pish, then you’re full of crowns.

Mat. Hang him! he would ha’ thrust crowns upon me to have fallen in again, but I scorn cast clothes, or any man’s gold.

Or. But mine. [Aside.]—How did he brook that, sir?

Mat. O, swore like a dozen of drunken tinkers: at last growing foul in words, he and four of his men drew upon me, sir.

Or. In your house? would I had been by!

Mat. I made no more ado, but fell to my old lock, and so thrashed my blue coats[389] and old crab-tree-face my father-in-law, and then walked like a lion in my grate.

Or. O noble master!

Mat. Sirrah, he could tell me of the robbing the two pedlars, and that warrants are out for us both.

Or. Good sir, I like not those crackers.

Mat. Crackhalter, wu’t set thy foot to mine?

Or. How, sir? at drinking?

Mat. We’ll pull that old crow my father; rob thy master: I know the house, thou the servants; the purchase[390] is rich, the plot to get it easy: the dog will not part from a bone.

Or. Pluck’t out of his throat then; I’ll snarl for one, if this[391] can bite.

Mat. Say no more, say no more, old Cole;[392] meet me anon at the sign of the Shipwreck.

Or. Yes, sir.

Mat. And dost hear, man?—the Shipwreck. [Exit.

Or. Thou’rt at the shipwreck now, and like a swimmer
Bold but unexpert with those waves dost play,
Whose dalliance, whorelike, is to cast thee away.
Enter Hippolito and Bellafront.
And here’s another vessel, better fraught,
But as ill mann’d; her sinking will be wrought,
If rescue come not: like a man of war
I’ll therefore bravely out; somewhat I’ll do,
And either save them both, or perish too. [Exit.

Hip. ’Tis my fate to be bewitched by those eyes.

Bel. Fate? your folly:
Why should my face thus mad you? 'las, those colours
Are wound up long ago which beauty spread!
The flowers that once grew here are withered.
You turn’d my black soul white, made it look new,
And should I sin, it ne’er should be with you.
Hip. Your hand; I’ll offer you fair play: when first
We met i’ th’ lists together, you remember
You were a common rebel; with one parley
I won you to come in.

Bel. You did.

Hip. I’ll try
If now I can beat down this chastity
With the same ordnance; will you yield this fort,
If with the power of argument now, as then,
I get of you the conquest; as before
I turn’d you honest, now to turn you whore
By force of strong persuasion?
Bel. If you can,
I yield.
Hip. The alarum’s struck up: I’m your man.
Bel. A woman gives defiance.
Hip. Sit. [They seat themselves.
Bel. Begin:
’Tis a brave battle to encounter sin.
Hip. You men that are to fight in the same war
To which I’m prest, and plead at the same bar,
To win a woman, if you’d have me speed,
Send all your wishes!
Bel. No doubt you’re heard: proceed.
Hip. To be a harlot, that you stand upon,
The very name’s a charm to make you one.
Harlot[ta] was a dame of so divine
And ravishing touch,[393] that she was concubine
To an English king:[394] her sweet, bewitching eye
Did the king’s heart-strings in such love-knots tie,
That even the coyest was proud when she could hear
Men say, Behold, another Harlot there!
And, after her, all women that were fair
Were harlots call’d, as to this day some are:
Besides, her dalliance she so well does mix,
That she’s in Latin call’d the meretrix.
Thus for the name: for the profession this;
Who lives in bondage lives lac’d; the chief bliss
This world below can yield is liberty;
And who than whores with looser wings dare fly?
As Juno’s proud bird spreads the fairest tail,
So does a strumpet hoist the loftiest sail:
She’s no man’s slave; men are her slaves; her eye
Moves not on wheels screw’d up with jealousy:
She, hors’d or coach’d, does merry journeys make,
Free as the sun in his gilt zodiac;
As bravely does she shine, as fast she’s driven,
But stays not long in any house of heaven,
But shifts from sign to sign her amorous prizes,
More rich being when she’s down than when she rises.
In brief, gentlemen haunt them, soldiers fight for them,
Few men but know them, few or none abhor them.
Thus for sport’ sake speak I, as to a woman,
Whom, as the worst ground, I would turn to common;
But you I would enclose for mine own bed.

Bel. So should a husband be dishonoured.

Hip. Dishonour’d? 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?
’Tis time you sound retreat.
Hip. Say, have I won?
Is the day ours?
Bel. The battle’s but half done,
None but yourself have yet sounded alarms;
Let us strike too, else you dishonour arms.

Hip. If you can win the day, the glory’s yours.

Bel. To prove a woman should not be a whore,
When she was made she had one man, and no more;
Yet she was tied to laws then, for even than[395]
’Tis said she was not made for men, but man.
Anon, t’ increase earth’s brood, the law was varied,
Men should take many wives; and though they married
According to that act, yet ’tis not known
But that those wives were only tied to one.
New parliaments were since; for now one woman
Is shar’d between three hundred, nay, she’s common,
Common as spotted leopards, whom for sport
Men hunt to get the flesh, but care not for’t:
So spread they nets of gold, and tune their calls,
To enchant silly women to take falls;
Swearing they’re angels, which that they may win,
They’ll hire the devil to come with false dice in.
O Sirens’ subtle tunes! yourselves you flatter,
And our weak sex betray: so men love water;
It serves to wash their hands, but, being once foul,
The water down is pour’d, cast out of doors,
And even of such base use do men make whores.
A harlot, like a hen, more sweetness reaps
To pick men one by one up than in heaps:
Yet all feeds but confounding. Say you should taste me,
I serve but for the time, and when the day
Of war is done, am cashier’d out of pay:
If like lame soldiers I could beg, that’s all,
And there’s lust’s rendezvous, an hospital.
Who then would be a man’s slave, a man’s woman?
She’s half-starv’d the first day that feeds in common.

Hip. You should not feed so, but with me alone.

Bel. If I drink poison by stealth, is’t not all one?
Is’t not rank poison still with you alone?
Nay, say you spied a courtesan, whose soft side
To touch you’d sell your birthright, for one kiss
Be rack’d; she’s won, you’re sated: what follows this?
O, then you curse that bawd that tol’d you in,
The night; you curse your lust, you loathe the sin,
You loathe her very sight, and ere the day
Arise, you rise glad when you’re stol’n away.
Even then when you are drunk with all her sweets,
There’s no true pleasure in a strumpet’s sheets.
Women, whom lust so prostitutes to sale,
Like dancers upon ropes, once seen, are stale.
Hip. If all the threads of harlots’ lives are spun
So coarse as you would make them, tell me why
You so long lov’d the trade?
Bel. If all the threads
Of harlots’ lives be fine as you would make them,
Why do not you persuade your wife turn whore,
And all dames else to fall before that sin?
Like an ill husband, though I knew the same
To be my undoing, follow’d I that game.
O, when the work of lust had earn’d my bread,
To taste it how I trembled, lest each bit,
Ere it went down, should choke me chewing it!
My bed seem’d like a cabin hung in hell,
The bawd hell’s porter, and the liquorish wine
The pander fetch’d was like an easy fine,
For which, methought, I leas’d away my soul;
And oftentimes even in my quaffing bowl
Thus said I to myself, I am a whore,
And have drunk down thus much confusion more.
Hip. It is a common rule, and ’tis most true,
Two of one trade ne’er love; no more do you:
Why are you sharp 'gainst that you once profest?
Bel. Why dote you on that which you did once detest?
I cannot, seeing she’s woven of such bad stuff,
Set colours on a harlot base enough.
Nothing did make me, when I lov’d them best,
To loathe them more than this; when in the street
A fair young modest damsel I did meet,
She seem’d to all a dove, when I pass’d by,
And I to all a raven; every eye
That follow’d her, went with a bashful glance;
At me each bold and jeering countenance
Darted forth scorn; to her, as if she had been
Some tower unvanquish’d, would they [bonnet] vail;
'Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail;
She, crown’d with reverend praises, passed by them;
I, though with face mask’d, could not ’scape the hem;
For, as if heaven had set strange marks on whores
Because they should be pointing-stocks to man,
Drest up in civilest shape a courtesan
Let her walk saint-like, noteless, and unknown,
Yet she’s betray’d by some trick of her own.
Were harlots therefore wise, they’d be sold dear;
For men account them good but for one year,
And then, like almanacs whose dates are gone,
They are thrown by, and no more look’d upon.
Who’ll therefore backward fall, who will launch forth
In seas so foul, for ventures no more worth?
Lust’s voyage hath, if not this course, this cross,
Buy ne’er so cheap, your ware comes home with loss.
What, shall I sound retreat? the battle’s done:
Let the world judge which of us two have won.

Hip. I!

Bel. You? nay, then, as cowards do in fight,
What by blows cannot, shall be sav’d by flight.
[Exit.
Hip. Fly to earth’s fixed centre; to the caves
Of everlasting horror I’ll pursue thee,
Though loaden with sins, even to hell’s brazen doors:
Thus wisest men turn fools, doting on whores. [Exit.

SCENE II.

An Apartment in the Duke’s Palace.

Enter the Duke, Lodovico, and Orlando disguised as a Serving-man: after them Infelice, Carolo, Astolfo, Beraldo, and Fontinell.

Or. I beseech your grace, though your eye be so piercing as under a poor blue coat[396] to cull out an honest father from an old serving-man, yet, good my lord, discover not the plot to any, but only this gentleman that is now to be an actor in our ensuing comedy.

Duke. Thou hast thy wish, Orlando, pass unknown;
Sforza[397] shall only go along with thee,
To see that warrant serv’d upon thy son.

Lod. To attach him upon felony for two pedlars, is’t not so?

Or. Right, my noble knight: those pedlars were two knaves of mine; he fleeced the men before, and now he purposes to flay the master. He will rob me; his teeth water to be nibbling at my gold; but this shall hang him by th’ gills till I pull him on shore.

Duke. Away; ply you the business.

Or. Thanks to your grace: but, my good lord, for my daughter,——

Duke. You know what I have said.

Or. And remember what I have sworn: she’s more honest, on my soul, than one of the Turk’s wenches, watched by a hundred eunuchs.

Lod. So she had need, for the Turks make them whores.

Or. He’s a Turk that makes any woman a whore; he’s no true Christian I’m sure.—I commit [her to] your grace.

Duke. Infelice.

Inf. Here, sir.

Lod. Signor Friscobaldo——

Or. Frisking again? Pacheco.

Lod. Uds so, Pacheco; we’ll have some sport with this warrant: ’tis to apprehend all suspected persons in the house: besides, there’s one Bots a pander, and one madam Horseleech a bawd, that have abused my friend; those two conies will we ferret into the pursenet.[398]

Or. Let me alone for dabbing them o’ th’ neck: come, come.

Lod. Do ye hear, gallants? meet me anon at Matheo’s.

Cat.
Ast., &c. } Enough.

[Exeunt Lodovico and Orlando.
Duke. th’ old fellow sings that note thou didst before,
Only his tunes are, that she is no whore,
But that she sent his letters and his gifts
Out of a noble triumph o’er his lust,
To shew she trampled his assaults in dust.

Inf. ’Tis a good honest servant, that old man.

Duke. I doubt no less.

Inf. And it may be my husband,
Because when once this woman was unmask’d,
He levell’d all her thoughts, and made them fit,
Now he’d mar all again, to try his wit.
Duke. It may be so too, for to turn a harlot
Honest, it must be by strong antidotes;
’Tis rare, as to see panthers change their spots:
And when she’s once a star fix’d and shines bright,
Though 'twere impiety then to dim her light,
Because we see such tapers seldom burn,
Yet ’tis the pride and glory of some men
To change her to a blazing star agen,[399]
And it may be Hippolito does no more.—
It cannot be but you’re acquainted all
With that same madness of our son-in-law,
That dotes so on a courtesan.

All. Yes, my lord.

Car. All the city thinks he’s a whoremonger.

Ast. Yet I warrant he’ll swear no man marks him.

Ber. ’Tis like so; for when a man goes a wenching, is as if he had a strong stinking breath, every one smells him out, yet he feels it not, though it be ranker than the sweat of sixteen bearwarders.

Duke. I doubt then you have all those stinking breaths;
You might be all smelt out.

Car. Troth, my lord, I think we are all as you ha’ been in your youth when you went a-maying; we all love to hear the cuckoo sing upon other men’s trees.

Duke. It’s well yet you confess;—but, girl, thy bed
Shall not be parted with a courtesan:—
’Tis strange,
No frown of mine, no frown of the poor lady,
My abus’d child, his wife, no care of fame,
Of honour, heaven, or hell, no, not that name
Of common strumpet, can affright, or woo him
To abandon her; the harlot does undo him;
She has bewitch’d him, robb’d him of his shape,
Turn’d him into a beast, his reason’s lost;
You see he looks wild, does he not?
Car. I ha’ noted
New moons in’s face, my lord, all full of change.
Duke. He’s no more like unto Hippolito
Than dead men are to living; never sleeps,
Or if he do, it’s dreams; and in those dreams
His arms work, and then cries, Sweet—what’s her name?
What’s the drab’s name?
Ast. In troth, my lord, I know not;
I know no drabs, not I.
Duke. O, Bellafront——
And catching her fast, cries, My Bellafront!

Car. A drench that’s able to kill a horse cannot kill this disease of smock-smelling, my lord, if it have once eaten deep.

Duke. I’ll try all physic, and this medicine first:
I have directed warrants strong and peremptory
To purge our city Milan, and to cure
The outward parts, the suburbs, for the attaching
Of all those women who, like gold, want weight:
Cities, like ships, should have no idle freight.

Car. No, my lord, and light wenches are no idle freight: but what’s your grace’s reach in this?

Duke. This, Carolo. If she whom my son dotes on
Be in that muster-book[400] enroll’d, he’ll shame
Ever t’ approach one of such noted name.
Car. But say she be not?
Duke. Yet on harlots’ heads
New laws shall fall so heavy, and such blows shall
Give to those that haunt them, that Hippolito,
If not for fear of law, for love to her,
If he love truly, shall her bed forbear.

Car. Attach all the light heels i’ th’ city, and clap 'em up? why, my lord, you dive into a well unsearchable: all the whores within the walls, and without the walls? I would not be he should meddle with them for ten such dukedoms; the army that you speak on is able to fill all the prisons within this city, and to leave not a drinking room in any tavern besides.

Duke. Those only shall be caught that are of note;
Harlots in each street flow:
The fish being thus i’ th’ net, ourself will sit,
And with eye most severe dispose of it.—
Come, girl. [Exeunt Duke and Infelice.

Car. Arraign the poor whore[s]!

Ast. I’ll not miss that sessions.

Fon. Nor I.

Ber. Nor I, though I hold up my hand there myself.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.

A Room in Matheo’s House.
Enter Matheo, Lodovico, and Orlando disguised as a Serving-man.

Mat. Let who will come, my noble chevalier, I can but play the kind host, and bid 'em welcome.

Lod. We’ll trouble your house, Matheo, but as Dutchmen do in taverns; drink, be merry, and be gone.

Or. Indeed, if you be right Dutchmen, if you fall to drinking, you must be gone.

Mat. The worst is, my wife is not at home; but we’ll fly high, my generous knight, for all that: there’s no music when a woman is in the consort.[401]

Or. No, for she’s like a pair of virginals,[402] always with jacks at her tail.

Enter Astolfo, Carolo, Beraldo, and Fontinell.

Lod. See, the covey is sprung.

Ast.
Car., &c. } Save you, gallants.

Mat. Happily encountered, sweet bloods.

Lod. Gentlemen, you all know signor Candido the linen-draper, he that’s more patient than a brown baker upon the day when he heats his oven, and has forty scolds about him.

Ast.
Car., &c. } Yes, we know him all: what of him?

Lod. Would it not be a good fit of mirth to make a piece of English cloth of him, and to stretch him on the tenters till the threads of his own natural humour crack, by making him drink healths, tobacco,[403] dance, sing bawdy songs, or to run any bias according as we think good to cast him?

Car. 'Twere a morris-dance worth the seeing.

Ast. But the old fox is so crafty, we shall hardly hunt [him] out of his den.

Mat. To that train I ha’ given fire already; and the hook to draw him hither is to see certain pieces of lawn which I told him I have to sell, and indeed have such.—Fetch them down, Pacheco.

Or. Yes, sir, I’m your water-spaniel, and will fetch any thing—but I’ll fetch one dish of meat anon shall turn your stomach, and that’s a constable.

[Aside, and exit.
Enter Bots, ushering in Mistress Horseleech.

Ast.
Ber.
Fon. } How now? how now?

Car. What galley-foist[404] is this?

Lod. Peace; two dishes of stewed prunes,[405] a bawd and a pander.—My worthy lieutenant Bots, why, now I see thou’rt a man of thy word; welcome.—Welcome, mistress Horseleech.—Pray, gentlemen, salute this reverend matron.

Mis. H. Thanks to all your worships.

Lod. I bade a drawer send in wine too: did none come along with thee, grannam, but the lieutenant?

Mis. H. None came along with me but Bots, if it like your worship.

Bots. Who the pox should come along with you but Bots?