Act 4, Scene 5

Mytilene. A street before the brothel.

[Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.]
First Gentleman
1759 Did you ever hear the like?
Second Gentleman
1760 No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once
1761 gone.
First Gentleman
1762 But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a
1763 thing?
Second Gentleman
1764 No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy-houses: shall's go hear the
1765 vestals sing?
First Gentleman
1766 I'll do any thing now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road
1767 of rutting for ever.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 1762cultural context
“to have divinity preached there”
The First Gentleman is astonished that a brothel became the setting for moral instruction. Marina, instead of submitting to clients, preached virtue so effectively that men left converted rather than satisfied. Her power as a speaker is the play's equivalent of a saint reforming sinners in the most corrupt possible place.
TLN 1764archaic vocab
“no more bawdy-houses”
'Bawdy-house' is Elizabethan for 'brothel' -- a house run by a 'bawd' (a procurer or brothel-keeper). The word is plain and contemporary; the Second Gentleman's vow to avoid them entirely signals Marina's effect on both men.
TLN 1764classical allusion
“shall's go hear the vestals sing”
The Vestals were the Vestal Virgins of Rome -- six priestesses of the goddess Vesta who kept the sacred fire burning and were bound by a strict vow of chastity for thirty years of service. Attending their ritual singing is the opposite of visiting a brothel: the Second Gentleman proposes swapping the most impure public setting for the most chaste. The joke lands because Marina has, in effect, turned the brothel into a Vestal precinct.
classical Diana, virgin goddess of the moon
TLN 1766archaic vocab
“out of the road of rutting for ever”
'Rutting' is the seasonal mating drive of deer and other animals -- used figuratively here for promiscuous sexual appetite. The First Gentleman says he is permanently off 'the road' (the path, the habit) of such desire. The animal metaphor underscores how completely Marina has stripped these men of their baser impulses.