Hip. Methinks a toad is happier than a whore;
That with one poison swells, with thousands more
The other stocks her veins: harlot? fie, fie!
You are the miserablest creatures breathing,
The very slaves of nature; mark me else:
You put on rich attires, others’ eyes wear them,
You eat, but to supply your blood with sin:
And this strange curse e’en haunts you to your graves.
From fools you get, and spend it upon slaves:
Like bears and apes, you’re baited and show tricks
For money; but your bawd the sweetness licks.
Indeed, you are their journey-women, and do
All base and damned works they list set you to:
So that you ne’er are rich; for do but show me,
In present memory, or in ages past,
The fairest and most famous courtesan,
Whose flesh was dear’st: that raised the price of sin,
And held it up; to whose intemperate bosom,
Princes, earls, lords, the worst has been a knight,
The mean’st a gentleman, have offered up
Whole hecatombs of sighs, and rained in showers
Handfuls of gold; yet, for all this, at last
Diseases sucked her marrow, then grew so poor,
That she has begged e’en at a beggar’s door.
And (wherein Heaven has a finger) when this idol,
From coast to coast, has leapt on foreign shores,
And had more worship than th’outlandish whores:
When several nations have gone over her,
When for each several city she has seen,
Her maidenhead has been new, and been sold dear:
Did live well there, and might have died unknown,
And undefamed; back comes she to her own,
And there both miserably lives and dies,
Scorned even of those that once adored her eyes,
As if her fatal circled life thus ran,
Her pride should end there, where it first began.
What do you weep to hear your story read?
Nay, if you spoil your cheeks, I’ll read no more.
Bell. O yes, I pray, proceed:
Indeed, ’twill do me good to weep, indeed.
Hip. To give those tears a relish, this I add,
You’re like the Jews, scattered, in no place certain,
Your days are tedious, your hours burdensome:
And were’t not for full suppers, midnight revels,
Dancing, wine, riotous meetings, which do drown,
And bury quite in you all virtuous thoughts,
And on your eyelids hang so heavily,
They have no power to look so high as Heaven,—
You’d sit and muse on nothing but despair,
Curse that devil Lust, that so burns up your blood,
And in ten thousand shivers break your glass
For his temptation. Say you taste delight,
To have a golden gull from rise to set,
To mete[169] you in his hot luxurious arms,
Yet your nights pay for all: I know you dream
Of warrants, whips, and beadles, and then start
At a door’s windy creak: think every weasel
To be a constable, and every rat
A long-tailed officer: Are you now not slaves?
Oh, you’ve damnation without pleasure for it!
Such is the state of harlots. To conclude:
When you are old and can well paint no more,
You turn bawd, and are then worse than before:
Make use of this: farewell.
Bell. Oh, I pray, stay.
Hip. I see Matheo comes not: time hath barred me;
Would all the harlots in the town had heard me. [Exit.
Bell. Stay yet a little longer! No? quite gone!
Curst be that minute—for it was no more,
So soon a maid is changed into a whore—
Wherein I first fell! be it for ever black!
Yet why should sweet Hippolito shun mine eyes?
For whose true love I would become pure, honest,
Hate the world’s mixtures, and the smiles of gold.
Am I not fair? why should he fly me then?
Fair creatures are desired, not scorned of men.
How many gallants have drunk healths to me,
Out of their daggered arms, and thought them blest,
Enjoying but mine eyes at prodigal feasts!
And does Hippolito detest my love?
Oh, sure their heedless lusts but flattered me,
I am not pleasing, beautiful, nor young.
Hippolito hath spied some ugly blemish,
Eclipsing all my beauties: I am foul:
Harlot! Ay, that’s the spot that taints my soul.
What! has he left his weapon here behind him
And gone forgetful? O fit instrument
To let forth all the poison of my flesh!
Thy master hates me, ’cause my blood hath ranged:
But when ’tis forth, then he’ll believe I’m changed.
As she is about to stab herself re-enter Hippolito.
Hip. Mad woman, what art doing?
Bell. Either love me,
Or split my heart upon thy rapier’s point:
Yet do not neither; for thou then destroy’st
That which I love thee for—thy virtues. Here, here; [Gives sword to Hippolito.
Th’art crueller, and kill’st me with disdain:
To die so, sheds no blood, yet ’tis worse pain. [Exit Hippolito.
Not speak to me! Not bid farewell? a scorn?
Hated! this must not be; some means I’ll try.
Would all whores were as honest now as I! [Exit.
