BALLADS, SONGS AND CHANTIES CLOWN. I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably. here?-ballads? MOPSA. Pray now, buy some. What hast I love a ballad in print. A' life: for then we are sure they are true. AUTOLYCUS. Here's one to a very doleful tune-How a usurer's wife was brought to bed of twenty moneybags at a burden. MOPSA. Is it true, think you? AUTOLYCUS. Very true, and but a month old. DORCAS. Bless me from marrying a usurer! AUTOLYCUS. Here's the midwife's name to 't-one. Mistress Taleporter and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad? MOPSA. Pray you now, buy it. CLOWN. Come on, lay it by; and let's first see more bållads, we'll buy the other things anon. AUTOLYCUS. Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the coast. . . and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids: It was thought she was a woman, and was turned into a cold fish, for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful, and as true. DORCAS. Is it true, think you? AUTOLYCUS. Five justices' hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold! CLOWN. Lay it by too,-another. AUTOLYCUS. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one. MOPSA. Let's have some merry ones. AUTOLYCUS. Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune of "Two maids wooing a man. There's scarce a maid westward but she sings it; 'tis in request, I can tell you. Come, bring CLOWN. We'll have this song. away thy pack after me.-Wenches, I'll buy for you both.-Pedlar, let's have the first choice.-Follow me, girls. From A Winter's Tale, Acт iv., scene 3. More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as ballads and libels. JOHN SELDEN. She fell in love with the ballad of a sailor Heigh-ho, and the wind it blew! Her mother and her father stood by the tailor— OLD SONG. SIR PATRICK SPENS.1 THE king sits in Dunfermline town, "Oh, where will I get a skeely 2 skippèr Oh, up and spak' an eldern knight Our king has written a braid lettèr, "To Noroway, to Noroway To Noroway o'er the faem; The first word that Sir Patrick read, The neist that Sir Patrick read, "Oh, wha is this ha'e done this deed, To send us out at this time o' year," 5 Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet, Our ship must sail the faem; The king's daughter to Noroway, 'Tis we must tak' 6 her hame." 1 See Appendix, p. 369. 2 Skilful. 3 and 6 Often rendered "O' Noroway" and "fetch her hame." (See Appendix.) 4 Sometime between the day of SS. Simon and Jude and Candlemas. About two hundred years after this incident the Scots Parliament made it illegal for vessels to sail with staple goods during the above-named period. Here the thread of the narrative appears to be broken; possibly a stanza has been lost. This peculiar sort of illusion, however, is frequent in the oldest metrical tales that we have in English. They hoysed their sails on Monenday morn They hadna been a week, a week In Noroway but twae, When that the lords o' Noroway "Ye Scottishmen spend a' our king's goud And a' our queenis fee,❞— "Ye lie, ye lie, ye liars loud! Fu' loud I hear ye lie! "For I brought as mickle white moniè As gane 1 my men and me, And I brought a half-fou 2 o' gude red goud "Mak' ready, mak' ready, my merry men a'! "Now ever, alake, my master dear, "I saw the new moon late yestreen, And if we gang to sea, mastèr, I fear we'll come to harm." 3 They hadna sailed a league, a league, When the lift 4 grew dark, and the wind blew loud, The ankers loosed, and the topmasts lap; 5 And the waves cam' ower the broken ship, 1 and 2 As will be enough. 3 An old superstition, equivalent to a ring around the moon foretelling bad weather. 4 Welkin. 5 Leaptsprung, as when a sailing-vessel labours close-hauled and her topmasts spring fore and aft; in which case they are often " sprung," i. e. split, or go by the cap. f |