Princes -- Lebanon -- Tyre -- Drama; Tragicomedy; Tyre (Lebanon) -- Drama
MARINA.
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.
LEONINE.
I am sworn,
And will dispatch.
[_He seizes her._]
Enter Pirates.
FIRST PIRATE.
Hold, villain!
[_Leonine runs away._]
SECOND PIRATE.
A prize! a prize!
THIRD PIRATE.
Half part, mates, half part,
Come, let’s have her aboard suddenly.
[_Exeunt Pirates with Marina._]
Re-enter Leonine.
LEONINE.
These roguing thieves serve the great pirate Valdes;
And they have seized Marina. Let her go:
There’s no hope she will 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 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.
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, others 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 Pirates._] Come your ways. My masters, you say she’s a virgin?
FIRST PIRATE.
O sir, we doubt it not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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