The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream'/The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin
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The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin Good-fellow
[edit]- (To the Tune of Dulcina.)
- From Oberon, in fairy land,
- The king of ghosts and shadows there,
- Mad Robin I, at his command,
- Am sent to view the night-sports here.
- What revel rout
- Is kept about,
- In every corner where I go,
- I will o'ersee
- And merry be,
- And make good sport, with ho, ho, ho!
- Am sent to view the night-sports here.
- More swift than lightning can I fly
- About this airy welkin soon,
- And, in a minute's space, descry
- Each thing that's done below the moon,
- There's not a hag
- Or ghost shall wag,
- Each thing that's done below the moon,
- Or cry, ware Goblins! where I go,
- But Robin I
- Their feats will spy,
- And send them home, with ho, ho, ho!
- Whene'er such wanderers I meet,
- As from their night-sports they trudge home;
- With counterfeiting voice I greet
- And call them on, with me to roam
- Thro' woods, thro' lakes,
- Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;
- Or else, unseen, with them I go,
- All in the nick
- To play some trick
- And frolic it, with ho, ho, ho!
- And call them on, with me to roam
- Sometimes I meet them like a man;
- Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound;
- And to a horse I turn me can,
- To trip and trot about them round.
- But if, to ride,
- My back they stride,
- More swift than wind away I go,
- O'er hedge and lands,
- Thro' pools and ponds
- I whirry, laughing ho, ho, ho!
- To trip and trot about them round.
- When lads and lasses merry be,
- With possets and with junkets fine;
- Unseen of all the company,
- I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
- And, to make sport,
- I sniff and snort;
- And out the candles I do blow:
- The maids I kiss;
- They shriek—Who's this?
- I answer nought but ho, ho, ho!
- I eat their cakes and sip their wine;
- Yet now and then, the maids to please,
- At midnight I card up their wool;
- And while they sleep and take their ease,
- With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
- I grind at mill
- Their malt up still;
- I dress their hemp, I spin their tow,
- If any wake,
- And would me take,
- I wend me, laughing ho, ho, ho!
- With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
- When house or hearth doth sluttish lie,
- I pinch the maidens black and blue;
- The bed-clothes from the bed pull I,
- And lay them naked all to view.
- 'Twixt sleep and wake,
- I do them take,
- And on the key-cold floor them throw:
- If out they cry,
- Then forth I fly,
- And loudly laugh out ho, ho, ho!
- And lay them naked all to view.
- When any need to borrow ought,
- We lend them what they do require:
- And for the use demand we nought;
- Our own is all we do desire.
- If to repay
- They do delay,
- Abroad amongst them then I go,
- And, night by night,
- I them affright
- With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!
- Our own is all we do desire.
- When lazy queans have nought to do,
- But study how to cog and lie;
- To make debate and mischief too,
- 'Twixt one another secretly:
- I mark their gloze,
- And it disclose,
- 'Twixt one another secretly:
- To them whom they have wrongéd so:
- When I have done,
- I get me gone,
- And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!
- When men do traps and engines set
- In loop-holes, where the vermin creep,
- Who from their folds and houses, get
- Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep;
- I spy the gin,
- And enter in,
- And seem a vermin taken so;
- But when they there
- Approach me near,
- I leap out laughing ho, ho, ho!
- Their ducks and geese, and lambs and sheep;
- By wells and rills, in meadows green,
- We nightly dance our heydeguys;
- And to our fairy king and queen
- We chant our moon-light minstrelsies.
- When larks 'gin sing,
- Away we fling;
- And babes new-born steal as we go,
- And elf in bed
- We leave instead,
- And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!
- We chant our moon-light minstrelsies.
- From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
- Thus nightly revell'd to and fro:
- And for my pranks men call me by
- The name of Robin Good-fellow.
- Fiends, ghosts, and sprites,
- Who haunt the nights,
- The hags and goblins do me know;
- And beldames old
- My feats have told;
- So Vale, Vale; ho, ho, ho!
- The name of Robin Good-fellow.
- A black-letter broadside, XVIIth cent.
This broadside is found in various editions in the larger collections (Roxburghe Coll., I. 230; Pepys, I. 80; also in the Bagford); the text here given is Percy's collation (as printed in his Reliques) of one or two of the above. The tune of Dulcina was famous; it may be seen in Chappell's Popular Music, 142.