| ACT IV SCENE VI | The same. A room in the brothel. |
| [Enter Pandar, Bawd, and BOULT] |
| Pandar | Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she |
| had ne'er come here. |
| Bawd | Fie, fie upon her! she's able to freeze the god |
| Priapus, and undo a whole generation. We must |
| either get her ravished, or be rid of her. When she | 5 |
| should do for clients her fitment, and do me the |
| kindness of our profession, she has me her quirks, |
| her reasons, her master reasons, her prayers, her |
| knees; that she would make a puritan of the devil, |
| if he should cheapen a kiss of her. | 10 |
| BOULT | 'Faith, I must ravish her, or she'll disfurnish us |
| of all our cavaliers, and make our swearers priests. |
| Pandar | Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me! |
| Bawd | 'Faith, there's no way to be rid on't but by the |
| way to the pox. Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised. | 15 |
| BOULT | We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish |
| baggage would but give way to customers. |
| [Enter LYSIMACHUS] |
| LYSIMACHUS | How now! How a dozen of virginities? |
| Bawd | Now, the gods to-bless your honour! |
| BOULT | I am glad to see your honour in good health. | 20 |
| LYSIMACHUS | You may so; 'tis the better for you that your |
| resorters stand upon sound legs. How now! |
| wholesome iniquity have you that a man may deal |
| withal, and defy the surgeon? |
| Bawd | We have here one, sir, if she would--but there never | 25 |
| came her like in Mytilene. |
| LYSIMACHUS | If she'ld do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say. |
| Bawd | Your honour knows what 'tis to say well enough. |
| LYSIMACHUS | Well, call forth, call forth. |
| BOULT | For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall | 30 |
| see a rose; and she were a rose indeed, if she had but-- |
| LYSIMACHUS | What, prithee? |
| BOULT | O, sir, I can be modest. |
| LYSIMACHUS | That dignifies the renown of a bawd, no less than it |
| gives a good report to a number to be chaste. | 35 |
| [Exit BOULT] |
| Bawd | Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never |
| plucked yet, I can assure you. |
[Re-enter BOULT with MARINA] |
| Is she not a fair creature? |
| LYSIMACHUS | 'Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. |
| Well, there's for you: leave us. | 40 |
| Bawd | I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and |
| I'll have done presently. |
| LYSIMACHUS | I beseech you, do. |
| Bawd | [To MARINA] First, I would have you note, this is
|
| an honourable man. | 45 |
| MARINA | I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him. |
| Bawd | Next, he's the governor of this country, and a man |
| whom I am bound to. |
| MARINA | If he govern the country, you are bound to him |
| indeed; but how honourable he is in that, I know not. | 50 |
| Bawd | Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will |
| you use him kindly? He will line your apron with gold. |
| MARINA | What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive. |
| LYSIMACHUS | Ha' you done? |
| Bawd | My lord, she's not paced yet: you must take some | 55 |
| pains to work her to your manage. Come, we will |
| leave his honour and her together. Go thy ways. |
| [Exeunt Bawd, Pandar, and BOULT] |
| LYSIMACHUS | Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade? |
| MARINA | What trade, sir? |
| LYSIMACHUS | Why, I cannot name't but I shall offend. | 60 |
| MARINA | I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it. |
| LYSIMACHUS | How long have you been of this profession? |
| MARINA | E'er since I can remember. |
| LYSIMACHUS | Did you go to 't so young? Were you a gamester at |
| five or at seven? | 65 |
| MARINA | Earlier too, sir, if now I be one. |
| LYSIMACHUS | Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a |
| creature of sale. |
| MARINA | Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, |
| and will come into 't? I hear say you are of | 70 |
| honourable parts, and are the governor of this place. |
| LYSIMACHUS | Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am?
|
| MARINA | Who is my principal? |
| LYSIMACHUS | Why, your herb-woman; she that sets seeds and roots |
| of shame and iniquity. O, you have heard something | 75 |
| of my power, and so stand aloof for more serious |
| wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my |
| authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly |
| upon thee. Come, bring me to some private place: |
| come, come. | 80 |
| MARINA | If you were born to honour, show it now; |
| If put upon you, make the judgment good |
| That thought you worthy of it. |
| LYSIMACHUS | How's this? how's this? Some more; be sage. |
| MARINA | For me, | 85 |
| That am a maid, though most ungentle fortune |
| Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came, |
| Diseases have been sold dearer than physic, |
| O, that the gods |
| Would set me free from this unhallow'd place, | 90 |
| Though they did change me to the meanest bird |
| That flies i' the purer air! |
| LYSIMACHUS | I did not think |
| Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne'er dream'd thou couldst. |
| Had I brought hither a corrupted mind, | 95 |
| Thy speech had alter'd it. Hold, here's gold for thee: |
| Persever in that clear way thou goest, |
| And the gods strengthen thee! |
| MARINA | The good gods preserve you! |
| LYSIMACHUS | For me, be you thoughten | 100 |
| That I came with no ill intent; for to me |
| The very doors and windows savour vilely. |
| Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and |
| I doubt not but thy training hath been noble. |
| Hold, here's more gold for thee. | 105 |
| A curse upon him, die he like a thief, |
| That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost |
| Hear from me, it shall be for thy good. |
| [Re-enter BOULT] |
| BOULT | I beseech your honour, one piece for me. |
| LYSIMACHUS | Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper! | 110 |
| Your house, but for this virgin that doth prop it, |
| Would sink and overwhelm you. Away! |
| [Exit] |
| BOULT | How's this? We must take another course with you. |
| If your peevish chastity, which is not worth a |
| breakfast in the cheapest country under the cope, | 115 |
| shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded like |
| a spaniel. Come your ways. |
| MARINA | Whither would you have me? |
| BOULT | I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common |
| hangman shall execute it. Come your ways. We'll | 120 |
| have no more gentlemen driven away. Come your ways, I say. |
| [Re-enter Bawd] |
| Bawd | How now! what's the matter? |
| BOULT | Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy |
| words to the Lord Lysimachus. |
| Bawd | O abominable! | 125 |
| BOULT | She makes our profession as it were to stink afore |
| the face of the gods. |
| Bawd | Marry, hang her up for ever! |
| BOULT | The nobleman would have dealt with her like a |
| nobleman, and she sent him away as cold as a | 130 |
| snowball; saying his prayers too. |
| Bawd | Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: |
| crack the glass of her virginity, and make the rest malleable. |
| BOULT | An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she |
| is, she shall be ploughed. | 135 |
| MARINA | Hark, hark, you gods! |
| Bawd | She conjures: away with her! Would she had never |
| come within my doors! Marry, hang you! She's born |
| to undo us. Will you not go the way of women-kind? |
| Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays! | 140 |
| [Exit] |
| BOULT | Come, mistress; come your ways with me. |
| MARINA | Whither wilt thou have me? |
| BOULT | To take from you the jewel you hold so dear. |
| MARINA | Prithee, tell me one thing first. |
| BOULT | Come now, your one thing. | 145 |
| MARINA | What canst thou wish thine enemy to be? |
| BOULT | Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my mistress. |
| MARINA | Neither of these are so bad as thou art, |
| Since they do better thee in their command. |
| Thou hold'st a place, for which the pained'st fiend | 150 |
| Of hell would not in reputation change: |
| Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every |
| Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib; |
| To the choleric fisting of every rogue |
| Thy ear is liable; thy food is such | 155 |
| As hath been belch'd on by infected lungs. |
| BOULT | What would you have me do? go to the wars, would |
| you? where a man may serve seven years for the loss |
| of a leg, and have not money enough in the end to |
| buy him a wooden one? | 160 |
| MARINA | Do any thing but this thou doest. Empty |
| Old receptacles, or common shores, of filth; |
| Serve by indenture to the common hangman: |
| Any of these ways are yet better than this; |
| For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak, | 165 |
| Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods |
| Would safely deliver me from this place! |
| Here, here's gold for thee. |
| If that thy master would gain by thee, |
| Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance, | 170 |
| With other virtues, which I'll keep from boast: |
| And I will undertake all these to teach. |
| I doubt not but this populous city will |
| Yield many scholars. |
| BOULT | But can you teach all this you speak of? | 175 |
| MARINA | Prove that I cannot, take me home again, |
| And prostitute me to the basest groom |
| That doth frequent your house. |
| BOULT | Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can |
| place thee, I will. | 180 |
| MARINA | But amongst honest women. |
| BOULT | 'Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. |
| But since my master and mistress have bought you, |
| there's no going but by their consent: therefore I |
| will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I | 185 |
| doubt not but I shall find them tractable enough. |
| Come, I'll do for thee what I can; come your ways. |
| [Exeunt] |
Shakespeare's Sources for Pericles