Pand. 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? Pand. 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. Pand. As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is our profession any trade; it's no callling :-but here comes Boult. Enter the Pirates, and BOULT, dragging in MARINA. Boult. Come your ways. [To MARINA.]-My masters, you say she's a virgin? 1 Pirate. O, sir, we doubt it not. Boult. Master, I have gone thorough 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 baited one doit of a thousand pieces. Pand. Well, follow me, my masters; you shall have your money presently. Wife, take her in; instruct her [8] A hatch is a half-door, usually placed within a street-door, admitting people into the entry of a house, but preventing their access to its lower apartments, or its stair case. Thus says the Syracusan Dromio in The Comedy of Errors, to the Dromio of Ephesus: "Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch." When the top of a hatch was guarded by a row of pointed iron spikes, no person could reach over and undo its fastening, which was always withinside, and near its bottom. This domestic portcullis perhaps was necessary to our ancient brothels. Secured within such a barrier, Mrs. Overdone could parley with her customers; refuse admittance to the shabby visitor, bargain with the rich gallant, defy the beadle, or keep the constable at bay. From having been therefore her usual defence, the hatch at last became an unequivocal denotement of her trade; for though the hatch with a flat top was a constant attendant on butteries in great families, colleges, &c. the hatch with spikes on it was peculiar to our early houses of amorous entertainment.--Nay, as I am assured by Mr. Walsh, (a native of Ireland, and one of the compositors engaged on the present edition of Shakespeare,) the entries to the Royal, Halifax, and Dublin baguios in the city of Dublin, still derive convenience or security from hatches, the spikes of which are unsurmountable. STEEVENS. what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment. [Exeunt PANDER, 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 BOULT. Mar. Alack, that Leonine was so slack, so slow!. (He should have struck, not spoke ;) or that these pirates, (Not enough barbarous,) had not overboard Thrown me, to seek my mother! Bawd. Why lament you, pretty one? Mar. That I am pretty. Bawd. Come, the gods have done their part in you. Bawd. You are lit into my hands, where you are like to live. Mar. The more my fault, To 'scape his hands, where I was like to die. Bawd. Ay, and you shall live in pleasure. 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? Mar. Are you a woman? Bawd. What would you have me be, an I be not a woman? Mar. An honest woman, or not a woman. Bawd. Marry, whip thee, gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you. Come, you are a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have you. Mar. 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. 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 pr'ythee, 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 offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her to-morrow. Bard. 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. Bard. Pray you, come hither a while. You have fortunes coming upon you. Mark me; you must seem to do that fearfully, which you commit willingly; to despise profit, where you have most gain. To weep that you live as you do, makes pity in your lovers: Seldom, but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit. Mar. I understand you not. Boult. O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of her's must be quenched with some present practice. Bawd. Thou say'st 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 may'st 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 framed 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. Mar. 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 ? [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Tharsus. A Room in CLEON'S House. Enter CLEON and DIONYZA. Dion. Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone ? The sun and moon ne'er look'd upon! Dion. I think You'll turn a child again. Cle. Were I chief lord of all the spacious world, Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess I'the justice of compare! O villain Leonine, If thou hadst drunk to him, it had been a kindness Dion. That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates, She died by night; I'll say so. Who can cross it? Unless you play the impious innocent,3 [9] Thunder is not supposed to have an effect on fish in general, but on eels only, which are roused by it from the mud, and are therefore more easily taken. [1] So, in Macbeth: WHALLEY. "Wake Duncan with this knocking :---Ay, would thou could'st" In Pericles as in Macbeth, the wife is more criminal than the husband, whose repentance follows immediately on the murder. STEEVENS. [2] So King John, on receiving the account of Arthur's death: We cannot hold mortality's strong hand :- "Why do you bend such solemn brows on me? life of one of his own family, his wife. An innocent was formerly a common appellation for an idiot. [5] She calls him an impious simpleton, because such a discovery would touch the MALONE MALONE. And for an honest attribute, cry out, She died by foul play. Cle. O, go to. Well, well, Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods Dion. Be one of those, that think The petty wrens of Tharsus will fly hence, To think of what a noble strain you are, Cle. To such proceeding Who ever but his approbation added, Though not his pre-consent, he did not flow Dion. Be it so then: Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead, Nor none can know, Leonine being gone. She did disdain my child, and stood between Her and her fortunes: No man would look on her, But cast their gazes on Marina's face; Whilst ours was blurted at, and held a malkin, Not worth the time of day. It pierc'd me thorough; [4] So, in Macbeth: "For it hath cow'd my better part of man." STEEVENS. Lady Macbeth urges the same argument to persuade her husband to commit the murder of Duncan, that Dionyza here uses to induce Cleon to conceal that of Marina. "-----------art thou afraid "To be the same in thine own act and valour, "Letting I dare not wait upon I would, Again, after the murder she exclaims: "My hands are of your colour, but I shame MALONE. [5] A passage in King John bears no very distant resemblance to the present: "-------If thou didst but consent "To this most cruel act, do but despair, "And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread MALONE. [6] A malkin is a coarse wench. A kitchen-malkin is mentioned in Coriolanus. Not worth the time of day, is, not worth a good-day, or good-morrow; undeserving the most common and usual salutation. STEEVENS. |