'But yet moreover these fooles are so unwise,
That in cold winter they use the same madness.
When all the houses are lade with snowe and yse,
O madmen amased, unstable, and witless!
What pleasure take you in this your foolishness?
What joy have ye to wander thus by night,
Save that ill doers alway hate the light?'
Another verse explains that not only the foolish young men of low birth were given to this practice, but also—
'States themselves therein abuse,'
'With some yonge fooles of the spiritualtie:
The foolish pipe without all gravitie
Doth eche degree call to his frantic game:
The darkness of night expelleth feare of shame.'
Brant had no great opinion of the music provided either. He describes their singing before their lady's window—
'One barketh, another bleateth like a shepe;
Some rore, some counter, some their ballads fayne:
Another from singing geveth himself to wepe;
When his soveraigne lady hath of him disdayne.'
Finally—a Parthian shot—
'Standing in corners like as it were a spye,
Whether that the wether be whot, colde, wet, or dry.'
Thus, one hundred years before Shakespeare was
