Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her,
Not carry her aboard. If she remain,
Whom they have ravish’d must by me be slain.
Exit
Scene 2
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?
Exeunt
Scene 3
Tarsus. A room in CLEON’s house.
Enter CLEON and DIONYZA
DIONYZA Why, are you foolish? Can it be undone?
CLEON O Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!
DIONYZA I think
You’ll turn a child again.
CLEON Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
I’ld give it to undo the deed. O lady,
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o’ the earth
I’ the justice of compare! O villain Leonine!
Whom thou hast poison’d too:
If thou hadst drunk to him, ‘t had been a kindness
Becoming well thy fact: what canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?
DIONYZA That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates,
To foster it, nor ever to preserve.
She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the pious innocent,
And for an honest attribute cry out
‘She died by foul play.’
CLEON O, go to. Well, well,
Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.
DIONYZA Be one of those that think
The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how coward a spirit.
CLEON To such proceeding
Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honourable sources.
DIONYZA 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