Bell. 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.
Bell. To prove a woman should not be a whore,
When she was made, she had one man, no more;
Yet she was tied to laws then, for even than,[291]
’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 shared 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.
Oh 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 poured, 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 cashiered 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 starved the first day that feeds in common.
Hip. You should not feed so, but with me alone.
Bell. 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 birth-right, for one kiss
Be racked; she’s won, you’re sated: what follows this?
Oh, then you curse that bawd that tolled 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 harlot’s lives are spun,
So coarse as you would make them, tell me why
You so long loved the trade?
Bell. If all the threads
Of harlot’s 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, followed I that game.
Oh, when the work of lust had earned my bread,
To taste it how I trembled, lest each bit,
Ere it went down, should choke me chewing it!
My bed seemed like a cabin hung in hell,
The bawd, hell’s porter, and the liquorish wine
The pander fetched, was like an easy fine,
For which, methought, I leased 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 professed?
Bell. 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 loved them best,
To loathe them more than this: when in the street
A fair young modest damsel I did meet,
She seemed to all a dove, when I passed by,
And I to all a raven: every eye
That followed 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 unvanquished, would they vail,
’Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail.
She, crowned with reverend praises, passed by them,
I, though with face masked, 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 betrayed 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 looked 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!