Home
This site uses cookies
log out

Pericles: Act IV, Scene 2

Sign in with Google to add your annotations.

Pericles
Act IV, Scene 2

Mytilene. A room in a brothel.

Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.

From: Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Charles Cowden Clarke, Mary Cowden Clarke, 1866

  1. Enter the three bawds: Pander, Bawd, and Boult.

Pander

1
  1. Boult!

Boult

2
  1. Sir?

Pander

3 - 4
  1. Search the market narrowly, Mytilene is full of gallants. We
  2. lost too much money this mart by being too wenchless.

Bawd

5 - 7
  1. We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor
  2. three, and they can do no more than they can do; and they
  3. with continual action are even as good as rotten.

Pander

8 - 10
  1. Therefore let’s have fresh ones, what e’er we pay for them.
  2. If there be not a conscience to be us’d in every trade, we
  3. shall never prosper.

Bawd

11 - 12
  1. Thou say’st true. ’Tis not our bringing up of poor
  2. bastards—as I think, I have brought up some eleven—

Boult

13 - 14
  1. Ay, to eleven, and brought them down again. But shall I
  2. search the market?

Bawd

15 - 16
  1. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow
  2. it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

Pander

17 - 19
  1. Thou sayest true, there’s two unwholesome, a’ conscience.
  2. The poor Transylvanian is dead that lay with the little
  3. baggage.

Boult

20 - 21
  1. Ay, she quickly poop’d him, she made him roast-meat for
  2. worms. But I’ll go search the market.
  1. Exit.

Pander

22 - 23
  1. Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion
  2. to live quietly, and so give over.

Bawd

24 - 25
  1. Why to give over, I pray you? Is it a shame to get when we
  2. are old?

Pander

26 - 30
  1. O, our credit comes not in like the commodity, nor the
  2. commodity wages not with the danger; therefore if in our
  3. youths we could pick up some pretty estate, ’twere not amiss
  4. to keep our door hatch’d. Besides, the sore terms we stand
  5. upon with the gods will be strong with us for giving o’er.

Bawd

31
  1. Come, other sorts offend as well as we.

Pander

32 - 34
  1. As well as we! Ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither
  2. is our profession any trade, it’s no calling. But here comes
  3. Boult.
  1. Enter Boult with the Pirates and Marina.

Boult

35
  1. Come your ways, my masters. You say she’s a virgin?

First Pirate

36
  1. O, sir, we doubt it not.

Boult

37 - 38
  1. Master, I have gone through for this piece you see. If you
  2. like her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest.

Bawd

39
  1. Boult, has she any qualities?

Boult

40 - 42
  1. She has a good face, speaks well, and has excellent good
  2. clothes; there’s no farther necessity of qualities can make
  3. her be refus’d.

Bawd

43
  1. What’s her price, Boult?

Boult

44
  1. I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces.

Pander

45 - 47
  1. Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money
  2. presently. Wife, take her in, instruct her what she has to
  3. do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment.
  1. Exeunt Pander and Pirates.

Bawd

48 - 52
  1. Boult, take you the marks of her, the color of her hair,
  2. complexion, height, her age, with warrant of her virginity,
  3. and cry, “He that will give most shall have her first.” Such
  4. a maidenhead were no cheap thing, if men were as they have
  5. been. Get this done as I command you.

Boult

53
  1. Performance shall follow.
  1. Exit.

Marina

54 - 57
  1. Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow!
  2. He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates,
  3. Not enough barbarous, had not o’erboard thrown me
  4. For to seek my mother!

Bawd

58
  1. Why lament you, pretty one?

Marina

59
  1. That I am pretty.

Bawd

60
  1. Come, the gods have done their part in you.

Marina

61
  1. I accuse them not.

Bawd

62
  1. You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.

Marina

63 - 64
  1. The more my fault
  2. To scape his hands where I was like to die.

Bawd

65
  1. Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.

Marina

66
  1. No.

Bawd

67 - 69
  1. Yes indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions.
  2. You shall fare well, you shall have the difference of all
  3. complexions. What do you stop your ears?

Marina

70
  1. Are you a woman?

Bawd

71
  1. What would you have me be, and I be not a woman?

Marina

72
  1. An honest woman, or not a woman.

Bawd

73 - 75
  1. Marry, whip the gosling, I think I shall have something to
  2. do with you. Come, you’re a young foolish sapling, and must
  3. be bow’d as I would have you.

Marina

76
  1. The gods defend me!

Bawd

77 - 80
  1. If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must
  2. comfort you, men must feed you, men stir you up. Boult’s
  3. return’d.
  4. Enter Boult.
  5. Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?

Boult

81 - 82
  1. I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs, I have
  2. drawn her picture with my voice.

Bawd

83 - 84
  1. And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of
  2. the people, especially of the younger sort?

Boult

85 - 87
  1. Faith, they listen’d to me as they would have hearken’d to
  2. their father’s testament. There was a Spaniard’s mouth
  3. wat’red, and he went to bed to her very description.

Bawd

88
  1. We shall have him here tomorrow with his best ruff on.

Boult

89 - 90
  1. Tonight, tonight. But, mistress, do you know the French
  2. knight that cow’rs i’ the hams?

Bawd

91
  1. Who, Monsieur Verollus?

Boult

92 - 93
  1. Ay, he, he offer’d to cut a caper at the proclamation, but
  2. he made a groan at it, and swore he would see her tomorrow.

Bawd

94 - 96
  1. Well, well, as for him, he brought his disease hither; here
  2. he does but repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to
  3. scatter his crowns in the sun.

Boult

97 - 98
  1. Well, if we had of every nation a traveler, we should lodge
  2. them with this sign.

Bawd

99 - 104
  1. To Marina.
  2. Pray you come hither a while. You have fortunes coming upon
  3. you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you
  4. commit willingly, despise profit where you have most gain.
  5. To weep that you live as ye do makes pity in your lovers;
  6. seldom but that pity begets you a good opinion, and that
  7. opinion a mere profit.

Marina

105
  1. I understand you not.

Boult

106 - 107
  1. O, take her home, mistress, take her home. These blushes of
  2. hers must be quench’d with some present practice.

Bawd

108 - 109
  1. Thou sayest true, i’ faith, so they must: for your bride
  2. goes to that with shame which is her way to go with warrant.

Boult

110 - 111
  1. Faith, some do, and some do not. But, mistress, if I have
  2. bargain’d for the joint—

Bawd

112
  1. Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.

Boult

113
  1. I may so.

Bawd

114 - 115
  1. Who should deny it? Come, young one, I like the manner of
  2. your garments well.

Boult

116
  1. Ay, by my faith, they shall not be chang’d yet.

Bawd

117 - 121
  1. Boult, spend thou that in the town. Report what a sojoumer
  2. we have; you’ll lose nothing by custom. When nature fram’d
  3. this piece, she meant thee a good turn; therefore say what a
  4. paragon she is, and thou hast the harvest out of thine own
  5. report.

Boult

122 - 124
  1. I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds
  2. of eels as my giving out her beauty stirs up the lewdly
  3. inclin’d. I’ll bring home some tonight.

Bawd

125
  1. Come your ways, follow me.

Marina

126 - 128
  1. If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
  2. Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
  3. Diana aid my purpose!

Bawd

129 - 130
  1. What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with
  2. us?
  1. Exeunt.
© 2021 Unotate.com • contact • privacy policy • Creative Commons text from PlayShakespeare.com • All illustrations are public domain or Creative Commons