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396 ENGLI6H SONG AND BALLAD MUSIC. |
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You are brave fellows! said the bishop, And the king of your doings shall know :
Therefore make haste, and come along with meFor before the king you shall go.
O pardon, O pardon, said bold Robin Hood,
O pardon, I thee pray; For it becomes not your lordship's coat
To take so many lives away.
No pardon, no pardon, said the bishop,
No pardon I thee owe; Therefore make haste and come along with me,
For before the king you shall go.
Then Robin set his back against a tree,
And his foot against a thorn, And from underneath his shepherd's coat
He pull'd out a bugle horn.
He put the little end to his mouth,
And a loud blast did he blow, Till threescore and ten of bold Robin's men
Came running all on a row :
All making obeysance to bold Robin Hood;
'Twas a comely sight for to see. What is the matter, master, said Little John,
That you blow so hastily ?
O here is the Bishop of Hereford,
And no pardon we shall have. Cut off his head, master, said Little John,
And throw him into his grave. „ |
O pardon, O pardon, said the bishop, O pardon, I thee pray ; i, For if I had known it had been you, " I'd have gone some other way.
No pardon, no pardon, said bold Robin Hood,
No pardon I thee owe; Therefore make haste and come along with me,
For to merry Barnsdale you shall go.
Then Robin he took the bishop by the hand, And led him to merry Barnsdale; [night,
He made him to stay and sup with him that And to drink wine, beer, and ale.
Call in a reckoning, said the bishop, For methinks it grows wondrous high ;
Lend me your purse, master, said Little John, And I'll tell you bye and bye.
Then Little John took the bishop's cloak, And spread it upon the ground,
And out of the bishop's portmantua He told three hundred pound.
Here's money enough, master, said Little John,
And a comely sight 'tislo see; It makes me in charity with the bishop,
Tho' he heartily loveth not me.
Robin Hood took the bishop by the hand, And he caused the music to play ; [boots,
And he made the old bishop to dance in his And glad he could so get away. |
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ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE.
This tune is included among the English airs in Nederlandtsche Q-edenck-Glanck, 1626; but the English name is not given. In The Dancing Master, from 1650 to 1690, it is entitled "The chirping of the Lark;" and in Playford's Introduction to the Skill of Music, " The Lark."
It is evidently a ballad-tune; but I have not found any ballad having particular reference to the song of the lark, and of suitable metre," except " Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne." In that, the story hangs upon Robin Hood's being awakened from a dream by the song of the woodweele, or woodlark;b and I have therefore coupled them. |
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■ The measure of the ballad alone would not give any indication: it is too common. Any ballads like " The Child of Elle;" any to the tune of Chevy Chace, or to Black and yellow (which I have not succeeded in indenti-fyingl might be sung to it.
b "Wodewali," and "woodweele," are explained by Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, as synonimous words—"a bird of the thrush kind; rather, perhaps, a woodlark:" but then, quoting SibDald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry, he adds, "It appears to be the green woodpecker." I imagine the first to be the "wood-peclcer" and the second the woodlark." In Adrianus |
Junius's Nomenclator, translated by John Higins, 8vo., 1585, p. 58, he renders " Galgulus, galhula, ales luri-dus," by " the bird that we call a witwal or woodwall;" and according to Ray (Syn. Av,, p. 43) ourwitwall Is a sort of woodpecker. But the " woodweeZe " of the ballad, and the "woodica/e" of Chaucer, ate certainly singing-birds. See the following lines from The Romaunt of the Rose, in the folio Chaucer of 1542:—
" In many places were nyghtyngales,
Alpes, fynches, and wodwales, *
That in her swete songe dely ten
In thylke places as they habyten." |
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