Mar. What mean you? Leon. If you require a little space for prayer, For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn Mar. Why, will you kill me? Leon. To satisfy my lady. Mar. Why should she have me kill'd? Leon. My commission Is not to reason of the deed, but do it. Mar. You will not do't for all the world, I hope. You are well favour'd, and your looks foreshow You have a gentle heart. I saw you lately, When you caught hurt in parting two that fought: Good sooth, it show'd well in you: do so now: Your lady seeks my life: come you between, And save poor me, the weaker. Leon. And will despatch. I am sworn, Enter Pirates, whilst MARINA is struggling. 1 Pirate. Hold, villain! [LEONINE runs away. 2 Pirate. A prize! a prize! 3 Pirate. Half-part, mates, half-part. Come, let's have her aboard suddenly. [Exeunt Pirates with MARINA 1 SCENE II. The same. Re-enter LEONINE. Leon. These roving1 thieves serve the great pirate Valdes 2; And they have seiz'd Marina. Let her go: There's no hope she'll return. I'll swear she's dead, And thrown into the sea.- -But I'll see further; 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 III. Mitylene. A Room in a Brothel. Enter PANDER, Bawd, and BOULT. Pand. Boult. Boult. Sir. Pand. Search the market narrowly; Mitylene 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 with continual action are even as good as rotten. Pand. Therefore let's have fresh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a conscience to be us'd in every trade, we shall never prosper. 1 Old copy reads roguing thieves.' 2 The Spanish armada perhaps furnished this name. Don Pedro de Valdes was an admiral in that fleet, and had the command of the great galleon of Andalusia. His ship being disabled, he was taken by Sir Francis Drake on the 22d of July, 1588, and sent to Dartmouth. This play was not written, we may conclude, till after that period. The making one of this Spaniard's ancestors a pirate was probably relished by the audience in those days. There is a particular account of this Valdes in Robert Greene's Spanish Masquerado, 1589. He was then prisoner in England. Bawd. Thou say'st true: 'tis not the bringing up poor bastards, as I think I have brought up some eleven- of Boult. Ay, to eleven, and brought them down. again1. 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. Pand. Thou say'st true; they are too unwholesome o'conscience. The poor Transilvanian 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 BOULT. 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 hatch'd3. Besides, the sore terms we stand 1 I have brought up (i. e. educated), says the bawd, some eleven. Yes, answers Boult, to eleven (i. e. as far as eleven years of age), and then brought them down again. The latter clause of the sentence requires no explanation. In the play of The Wether, by John Heywood, 4to. blk. 1. Merry Report says: Oft tyme is sene both in court and towne, Longe be women a bryngynge up, and sone brought down.' 2 i. e. is not equal to it. So in Othello : To wake and wage a danger profitless.' And in Antony and Cleopatra, vol. viii.:— his taunts and honours Wag'd equal with him.' 3 A hatch is a half door, sometimes placed within a street door, preventing access farther than the entry of a house. When the top of a hatch was guarded by a row of spikes no person 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 calling-but here comes Boult. Enter the Pirates, and BOULT, dragging in 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? could reach over and undo its fastening, which was always within side, 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 her usual defence, the hatch became the 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 early houses of amorous entertainment, and Mr. Steevens was informed that the bagnios of Dublin were not long since so defended. Malone exhibited a copy of a wood cut, prefixed to an old pamphlet entitled Holland's Leaguer, 4to. 1632, in which is a representation of a celebrated brothel, on the Bank-side, near the Globe playhouse, in which he imagined the hatch was delineated. Steevens has pleasantly bantered him upon it. The reader may see the cut and the raillery in the variorum Shakspeare. 4 i. e. bid a high price for her. Boult. I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces. Pand. 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 5 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. Mar. I accuse them not. 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. shall Bawd. Yes, indeed, shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions. You shall fare well; you have the difference of all complexions. What! do you stop your ears? 5 i. e. unripe, unskilful. So in Hamlet:-' And yet but raw neither in respect of his full sail.' |