Hip. Sit. [They seat themselves.
Bell. 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!
Bell. 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.
Harlotta was a dame of so divine
And ravishing touch, that she was concubine
To an English king;[290] 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 called as to this day some are:
Besides, her dalliance she so well does mix,
That she’s in Latin called the Meretrix.
Thus for the name; for the profession, this,
Who lives in bondage, lives laced; 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 screwed up with jealousy.
She, horsed or coached, 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 hunt them, soldiers fight for them,
Few men but know them, few or none abhor them:
Thus for sport’s 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.
Bell. So should a husband be dishonourèd.
Hip. Dishonoured? not a whit: to fall to one
Besides your husband is to fall to none,
For one no number is.
Bell. Faith, should you take
One in your bed, would you that reckoning make?
’Tis time you found retreat.
Hip. Say, have I won,
Is the day ours?