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    The Honest Whore - Part I: "I cannot abide that he should touch me."
    The Honest Whore - Part I: "I cannot abide that he should touch me."
    The Honest Whore - Part I: "I cannot abide that he should touch me."
    Ebook197 pages2 hours

    The Honest Whore - Part I: "I cannot abide that he should touch me."

    By Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton

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    About this ebook

    Thomas Dekker was a playwright, pamphleteer and poet who, perhaps, deserves greater recognition than he has so far gained. Despite the fact only perhaps twenty of his plays were published, and fewer still survive, he was far more prolific than that. Born around 1572 his peak years were the mid 1590’s to the 1620’s – seven of which he spent in a debtor’s prison. His works span the late Elizabethan and Caroline eras and his numerous collaborations with Ford, Middleton, Webster and Jonson say much about his work. His pamphlets detail much of the life in these times, times of great change, of plague and of course that great capital city London a swirling mass of people, power, intrigue.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateMay 1, 2016
    ISBN9781785437441
    The Honest Whore - Part I: "I cannot abide that he should touch me."
    Author

    Thomas Dekker

    Thomas Dekker is a Dutch former professional cyclist whose talent on the bike quickly took him to the top of the sport. He raced for The Netherlands in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, won two Dutch National Time Trial Championships, and captured victories in the 2006 Tirreno-Adriatico and the 2007 Tour of Romandie. He rode for the Dutch Rabobank superteam and then Silence-Lotto before a retroactively tested sample returned positive for EPO. In 2009, Dekker was suspended for two years for the drug violation, and it was later confirmed during Operaction Puerto that Dekker was among the clients of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes. After his suspension, Dekker joined the American Garmin Development Team and rode for Garmin-Barracuda from 2012-2014. Dekker claims to have ridden clean for Jonathan Vaughters and he became a popular rider in the American peloton. He retired after an attempt on the World Hour Record in 2015.

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      Book preview

      The Honest Whore - Part I - Thomas Dekker

      The Honest Whore by Thomas Dekker

      IN TWO PARTS.  PART THE FIRST.

      In collaboration with Thomas Middleton

      Thomas Dekker is a playwright, pamphleteer and poet who perhaps deserves greater recognition than he has so far gained.

      Despite the fact only perhaps twenty of his plays were published, and fewer still survive, he was far more prolific than that.  Born around 1572 his peak years were the mid 1590’s to the 1620’s – seven of which he spent in a debtor’s prison. His works span the late Elizabethan and Caroline eras and his numerous collaborations with Ford, Middleton, Webster and Jonson say much about his work.

      His pamphlets detail much of the life in these times, times of great change, of plague and of course that great capital city London a swirling mass of people, power, intrigue.

      Index of Contents

      INTRODUCTION

      DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

      SCENE—MILAN and the Neighbourhood.

      ACT THE FIRST

      SCENE I.—A Street in Milan.

      SCENE II.—Another Street.

      SCENE III.—A Chamber in the Duke’s Palace.

      SCENE IV.—A Street.

      SCENE V.—Candido’s Shop.

      ACT THE SECOND

      SCENE I.—A Room in Bellafront’s House.

      ACT THE THIRD.

      SCENE I.—Candido’s Shop.

      SCENE II.—An outer Apartment in Bellafront’s House.

      ACT THE FOURTH.

      SCENE I.—A Chamber in Hippolito’s House.

      SCENE II. A Street.

      SCENE III. Candido’s Shop.

      SCENE IV.—Grounds near the Duke’s Palace.

      ACT THE FIFTH.

      SCENE I.—A Hall in the Duke’s Palace.

      SCENE II. An Apartment in Bethlem Monastery.

      THOMAS DEKKER – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      THOMAS DEKKER – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

      INTRODUCTION

      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.

      DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

      GASPARO TREBAZZI, Duke of Milan.

      HIPPOLITO, a Count.

      CASTRUCHIO.

      SINEZI.

      PIORATTO.

      FLUELLO.

      MATHEO.

      BENEDICT, a Doctor.

      ANSELMO, a Friar.

      FUSTIGO, Brother of VIOLA.

      CANDIDO, a Linen-draper.

      GEORGE, his Servant.

      First Prentice.

      Second Prentice.

      CRAMBO.

      POH.

      ROGER, Servant of BELLAFRONT.

      Porter,

      Sweeper.

      Madmen, Servants, &c.

      INFELICE, Daughter of the Duke.

      BELLAFRONT, a Harlot.

      VIOLA, Wife of Candido.

      Mistress FINGERLOCK, a Bawd.

      SCENE—MILAN and the Neighbourhood

      THE HONEST WHORE

      PART THE FIRST

      ACT THE FIRST

      SCENE I.—A Street in Milan

      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.

      DUKE

      Behold, yon comet shows his head again!

      Twice hath he thus at cross-turns thrown on us

      Prodigious[1] looks: twice hath he troubled

      The waters of our eyes. See, he’s turned wild:—

      Go on, in God’s name.

      [1] Portentous.

      CASTRUCHIO, SINEZI

      On afore there, ho!

      DUKE

      Kinsmen and friends, take from your manly sides

      Your weapons to keep back the desperate boy

      From doing violence to the innocent dead.

      HIPPOLITO

      I prithee, dear Matheo—

      MATHEO

      Come you’re mad!

      HIPPOLITO

      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.

      CASTRUCHIO, SINEZI

      Set on.

      HIPPOLITO

      Set down the body!

      MATHEO

      O my lord!

      You’re wrong! i’th’ open street? you see she’s dead.

      HIPPOLITO 

      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 withered, that set out her cheeks:

      That pair of stars that gave her body light,

      Darkened 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 ashamed 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 cursed

      Even to thy face, by those that scarce can speak.

      HIPPOLITO  My lord—

      DUKE

      What would’st thou have? Is she not dead?

      HIPPOLITO 

      Oh, you ha’ killed her by your cruelty!

      DUKE

       Admit I had, thou kill’st her now again;

      And art more savage than a barbarous Moor.

      HIPPOLITO 

      Let me but kiss her pale and bloodless lip.

      DUKE

      O fie, fie, fie.

      HIPPOLITO 

      Or if not touch her, let me look on her.

      MATHEO

      As you regard your honour—

      HIPPOLITO 

      Honour? smoke!

      MATHEO

      Or if you loved 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 torment—

      Pass on.

      [Exeunt with hearse, all except the DUKE, HIPPOLITO and MATHEO.

      HIPPOLITO

      Matheo, thou dost wound me more.

      MATHEO

      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.

      HIPPOLITO 

      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?

      Queen’s bodies are but trunks to put in worms.

      MATHEO

      Speak no more sentences, my good lord, but slip hence; you see they are

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