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KING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR-MAID.
From Richard Johnson's Crowne-Garland of Goulden Roses, (1612,) as reprinted by the Percy Society, vi. 45. It is there simply entitled A Song of a Beggar and a King. Given in Percy's Reliques, i. 202, " corrected by another copy."
This story, and it would appear this very ballad, is alluded to by Shakespeare and others of the dramatists.
Thus, the 13th verse is partly quoted in Romeo and Juliet, A. ii. sc. 1:
" Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid."
Again in Love's Labour's Lost, (printed in 1598,) A. i. sc. 2.
Arm. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and tha Beggar?
Moth. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since, but, I think, now 'tis not to be found..
See also Henry Fourth, P. ii. A. v. sc. 3, Richard Second, A. v. sc. 3, and Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, A. iii. sc. 4,—all these cited by Percy.
In A Collection of Old Ballads, i. 138, is a rifaci-mento of this piece, in a different stanza, but following the story closely and preserving much of the diction. It is also printed in Evans's Old Ballads, ii. 361. |
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