Mytilene. A room in a brothel.
[Enter Pandar, Bawd, and BOULT]
Pandar Boult!
BOULT Sir?
Pandar Search the market narrowly; Mytilene is full of
gallants. We lost too much money this mart by being
too wenchless.
Bawd We were never so much out of creatures.
We have but poor three, and they can do no more
than they can do; and they with continual action are
even as good as rotten.
Pandar Therefore let’s have fresh ones, whate’er we pay
for them. If there be not a conscience to be used in
every trade, we shall never prosper.
Bawd Thou sayest true: ’tis not our bringing up of
poor bastards,–as, I think, I have brought up some
eleven–
BOULT Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again.
But shall I search the market?
Bawd What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind
will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.
Pandar Thou sayest true; they’re too unwholesome,
o’ conscience. The poor Transylvanian is dead, that
lay with the little baggage.
BOULT Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him
roast-meat for worms. But I’ll go search the market.
[Exit]
Pandar Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty
a proportion to live quietly, and so give over.
Bawd Why to give over, I pray you? is it a shame to get
when we are old?
Pandar O, our credit comes not in like the commodity,
nor the commodity wages not with the danger: therefore,
if in our youths we could pick up some pretty
estate, ’twere not amiss to keep our door hatched.
Besides, the sore terms we stand upon with the gods
will be strong with us for giving over.
Bawd Come, other sorts offend as well as we.
Pandar
As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse.
Neither is our profession any trade; it’s no
calling. But here comes Boult.
[Re-enter BOULT, with
the Pirates and MARINA]
BOULT [To MARINA] Come your ways.
My masters, you say she’s a virgin?
First Pirate O, sir, we doubt it not.
BOULT Master, I have gone through for this piece,
you see: if you like her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest.
Bawd Boult, has she any qualities?
BOULT She has a good face, speaks well, and has
excellent good clothes: there’s no further necessity of
qualities can make her be refused.
Bawd What’s her price, Boult?
BOULT
I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces.
Pandar Well,
follow me, my masters, you shall have your
money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her
what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her
entertainment.
[Exeunt Pandar and Pirates]
Bawd Boult, take you the marks of her, the colour
of her hair, complexion, height, age, with warrant
of her virginity; and cry ‘He that will give most shall
have her first.’ Such a maidenhead were no cheap
thing, if men were as they have been. Get this done
as I command you.
BOULT Performance shall follow.
[Exit]
MARINA Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow!
He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates,
Not enough barbarous, had not o’erboard thrown me
For to seek my mother!
Bawd Why lament you, pretty one?
MARINA That I am pretty.
Bawd Come, the gods have done their part in you.
MARINA I accuse them not.
Bawd
You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.
MARINA The more my fault
To scape his hands where I was like to die.
Bawd Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.
MARINA No.
Bawd Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of
all fashions: you shall fare well; you shall have the
difference of all complexions.
What! do you stop your ears?
MARINA Are you a woman?
Bawd
What would you have me be, an I be not a woman?
MARINA An honest woman, or not a woman.
Bawd Marry, whip thee, gosling: I think I shall have
something to do with you. Come, you’re a young
foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have
you.
MARINA The gods defend me!
Bawd If it please the gods to defend you by men,
then men must comfort you, men must feed you,
men must stir you up. Boult’s returned.
[Re-enter BOULT]
Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?
BOULT
I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs;
I have drawn her picture with my voice.
Bawd And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the
inclination of the people, especially of the younger sort?
BOULT ‘ Faith, they listened to me as they would have
hearkened to their father’s testament. There was a
Spaniard’s mouth so watered, that he went to bed to
her very description.
Bawd
We shall have him here to-morrow with his best ruff on.
BOULT
To-night, to-night. But, mistress, do you know the
French knight that cowers i’ the hams?
Bawd Who, Monsieur Veroles?
BOULT Ay, he: he offered to cut a caper at the
proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore
he would see her to-morrow.
Bawd Well, well; as for him, he brought his disease
hither: here he does but repair it. I know he will come
in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in the sun.
BOULT Well, if we had of every nation a traveller,
we should lodge them with this sign.
Bawd [To MARINA] Pray you, come hither awhile.
You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me: you
must seem to do that fearfully which you commit
willingly, despise profit where you have most gain.
To weep that you live as ye do makes pity in your
lovers: seldom but that pity begets you a good
opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.
MARINA I understand you not.
BOULT O, take her home, mistress, take her home:
these blushes of hers must be quenched with some
present practise.
Bawd Thou sayest true, i’ faith, so they must; for your
bride goes to that with shame which is her way to go
with warrant.
BOULT ‘Faith, some do, and some do not.
But, mistress, if I have bargained for the joint,–
Bawd Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.
BOULT I may so.
Bawd Who should deny it? Come, young one,
I like the manner of your garments well.
BOULT
Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet.
Bawd Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what
a sojourner we have; you’ll lose nothing by custom.
When nature flamed this piece, she meant thee a good
turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou
hast the harvest out of thine own report.
BOULT I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so
awake the beds of eels as my giving out her beauty stir
up the lewdly-inclined. I’ll bring home some to-night.
Bawd Come your ways; follow me.
MARINA If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
Diana, aid my purpose!
Bawd What have we to do with Diana? Pray you,
will you go with us?
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