| ACT IV SCENE II | 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. | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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? | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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: | 40 |
| 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. | 45 |
| 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 | 50 |
| 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 | 55 |
| 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, | 60 |
| 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. | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
| 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? | 75 |
| 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 | 80 |
| 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. | 85 |
[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? | 90 |
| 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. | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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. | 105 |
| 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 | 110 |
| 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. | 115 |
| 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. | 120 |
| 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 | 125 |
| 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 | 130 |
| 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. | 135 |
| 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? | 140 |
| [Exeunt] |
Shakespeare's Sources for Pericles