_Free._ Ay, or else few men would wish to go to heaven:
and, not to disguise with my friend, I am now going the
way of all flesh.
_Mal._ Not to a courtezan?
_Free._ A courteous one. 90
_Mal._ What, to a sinner?
_Free._ A very publican.
_Mal._ Dear, my loved friend, let me be full with you:
Know, sir, the strongest argument that speaks
Against the soul's eternity is lust,
That wise man's folly, and the fool's wisdom:
But to grow wild in loose lasciviousness,
Given up to heat and sensual appetite,
Nay, to expose your health and strength and name,
Your precious time, and with that time the hope 100
Of due preferment, advantageous means,
Of any worthy end, to the stale use,
The common bosom of a money creature,
One that sells human flesh--a mangonist!
_Free._ Alas, good creatures! what would you have
them do? Would you have them get their living by
the curse of man, the sweat of their brows? So they do:
every man must follow his trade, and every woman her
occupation. A poor decayed mechanical man's wife,
her husband is laid up, may not she lawfully be laid
down, when her husband's only rising is by his wife's
falling? A captain's wife wants means; her commander
lies in open fields abroad, may not she lie in civil arms
at home? A waiting gentlewoman, that had wont to
take say[6] to her lady, miscarries or so; the court
misfortune throws her down; may not the city courtesy
take her up? Do you know no alderman would pity
such a woman's case?[7] Why, is charity grown a sin,
or relieving the poor and impotent an offence? You
will say beasts take no money for their fleshly entertainment:
true, because they are beasts, therefore beastly;[8]
only men give to loose, because they are men, therefore
manly: and indeed, wherein should they bestow their
money better? In land, the title may be crack'd; in
houses, they may be burnt; in apparel, 'twill wear; in
wine, alas for our pity! our throat is but short: but
employ your[9] money upon women, and a thousand to
nothing, some one of them will bestow that on you
which shall stick by you as long as you live; they are
no ungrateful persons, they will give quid [10] for quo: do
ye protest, they'll swear; do you rise, they'll fall; do
you fall, they'll rise; do you give them the French
crown, they'll give you the French--_O justus justa
justum!_ They sell their bodies: do not better persons
sell their souls? nay, since all things have been sold,
honour, justice, faith, nay, even God Himself, 136
Aye me, what base ignobleness is it
To sell the pleasure of a wanton bed!
Why do men scrape, why heap to full heaps join?
But for his mistress, who would care for coin?
For this I hold to be denied of no man,
All things are made for man, and man for woman.
Give me my fee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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