Discovering the Secret Villanies of Alluring Strumpets

What a title, isn't it ?

It's not mine inasmuch as I've not made it, but merely stolen it. Much like you and I alike have stolen any words, any knowledge, any pleasure and anything else worth having at all in the world of the living. The source, which is to say he who's first known to have stolen it from parties unknown, is below :

The image itself is of course stolen too. The source - as far as I know - is luminarium.comⁱ, which contains a good rendition of extant Robert Greene textⁱⁱ.

This Robert Greene fellow was roughly a contemporary of Shakespeare. Also a playwright, he interests us today for his documenting of the underworld of his time. As you might have guessed a coney (noted as "conny" by Greene) is a domesticated hare raised for the table. Coney-catching is 1500s slang for the act of separating the gullible and the foolish from their gold.

Since people of Bitcoin seem inclined to move to "strong currency", something which eschews protections built over centuries, all that muck and gunk sacrificing convenience and control with a view of giving a chance to the stupid, the naive, the clueless and generally speaking the coneyⁱⁱⁱ, a good read of Greene might be in order.

Other than the charming English of yore and the definite cultural-y feel imbued upon one by simply reading v's marked down as u's and e's added liberally at words' end in the French fashion, revisiting the classics may be of great practical benefit in the most economic of senses. After all, at the time Greene lived the world worked pretty much on the equivalent of the BTC standard, and since he didn't die in the poorhouse he might know a thing or two hence forgotten to the forgetter's detriment.

Behold :

In this Dialogue, louing Countrymen, shall you finde what preiudice ensues by haunting of whore-houses, what dangers grows by dallying with common harlottes, what inconuenience followes the inordinate pleasures of vnchast Libertines, not onely by their consuming of their wealth, and impouerishment of their goods and landes, but to the great indangering of their health. For in conuersing with them they aime not simply at the losse of goods, and blemish of their good names, but they fish for diseases, sicknesse, sores incurable, vlcers brusting out of the ioyntes, and sault rhumes, which by the humour of that villanie, lepte from Naples into Fraunce, and from Fraunce into the bowels of Englande, which makes many crye out in their bones, whilest goodman Surgion laughs in his purse: a thing to be feared as deadly while men liue, as hell is to be dreaded after death, for it not only infecteth the bodie, consumeth the soule, and waste wealth and worship, but ingraues a perpetuall shame in the forehead of the partie so abused. Whereof Maister Huggins hath well written in his Myrror of Magistrates, in the person of Memprycaius, exclaiming against harlots, the verses be these:

Eschue vile Venus toyes shee cuts off age,
And learne this lesson oft, and tell thy frend,
By Pockes, death sodaine, begging, Harlots end.

Of interest are his A Notable Discovery of Coosnage, The Second Part of Conycatching, The Third and Last Part of Conycatching and so forth.

Enjoy!

PS. Bonus points for whosoever conspiracist first noticed the Bitcoin monogram on the male conman's pantaloons in the 1500s drawing. Well done!

1. Which is practically speaking a sort of curated - and therefore useful - wikipedia. To quote from the Letter from the Editor :

   This site combines several sites first created in 1996 to provide a starting point for students and enthusiasts of English Literature. Nothing replaces a quality library, but hopefully this site will help fill the needs of those who have not access to one.

   This point is of some interest to the Romanian readers of this blog, as it makes some older observation whole.
   [↩]

2. Something which gutenberg.org does not offer, in spite of being my primary choice for such needs. Isn't it sad that they have all sorts of contemporary "Greene" and yet almost nothing of the original ? I think it is. Seriously, nobody cares what was written after 2000, it's no longer of any value or import. Preserve the old text, discard the new. [↩]
3. Incidentally, ever wondered where "con" or "con man" come from ? [↩]