Hip. Worst then of all;
Our sins by custom, seem at last but small.
Were I but o’er your threshold, a next man,
And after him a next, and then a fourth,
Should have this golden hook, and lascivious bait,
Thrown out to the full length. Why let me tell you:
I ha’ seen letters sent from that white hand,
Tuning such music to Matheo’s ear.
Bell. Matheo! that’s true, but believe it, I
No sooner had laid hold upon your presence,
But straight mine eye conveyed you to my heart.
Hip. Oh, you cannot feign with me! why, I know, lady,
This is the common passion of you all,
To hook in a kind gentleman, and then
Abuse his coin, conveying it to your lover,
And in the end you show him a French trick,
And so you leave him, that a coach may run
Between his legs for breadth.
Bell. Oh, by my soul,
Not I! therein I’ll prove an honest whore,
In being true to one, and to no more.
Hip. If any be disposed to trust your oath,
Let him: I’ll not be he; I know you feign
All that you speak; ay, for a mingled harlot
Is true in nothing but in being false.
What! shall I teach you how to loath yourself?
And mildly too, not without sense or reason.
Bell. I am content; I would feign loath myself
If you not love me.
Hip. Then if your gracious blood
Be not all wasted, I shall assay to do’t.
Lend me your silence, and attention.
You have no soul, that makes you weigh so light;
Heaven’s treasure bought it:
And half-a-crown hath sold it:—for your body
Is like the common-shore, that still receives
All the town’s filth. The sin of many men
Is within you; and thus much I suppose,
That if all your committers stood in rank,
They’d make a lane, in which your shame might dwell,
And with their spaces reach from hence to hell.
Nay, shall I urge it more? there has been known
As many by one harlot, maimed and dismembered,
As would ha’ stuffed an hospital: this I might
Apply to you, and perhaps do you right:
O you’re as base as any beast that bears,—
Your body is e’en hired, and so are theirs.
For gold and sparkling jewels, if he can,
You’ll let a Jew get you with Christian:
Be he a Moor, a Tartar, though his face
Look uglier than a dead man’s skull.
Could the devil put on a human shape,
If his purse shake out crowns, up then he gets;
Whores will be rid to hell with golden bits.
So that you’re crueller than Turks, for they
Sell Christians only, you sell yourselves away.
Why, those that love you, hate you: and will term you
Liquorish damnation; with themselves half-sunk
After the sin is laid out, and e’en curse
Their fruitless riot; for what one begets
Another poisons; lust and murder hit:
A tree being often shook, what fruit can knit?
Bell. O me unhappy!
Hip. I can vex you more:
A harlot is like Dunkirk, true to none,
Swallows both English, Spanish, fulsome Dutch,
Back-doored Italian, last of all, the French,
And he sticks to you, faith, gives you your diet,
Brings you acquainted, first with Monsieur Doctor
And then you know what follows.
Bell. Misery.
Rank, stinking, and most loathsome misery.