The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream'/The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin

The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin Good-fellow

 * (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!


 * 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,
 * 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!


 * 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!


 * 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&mdash;Who's this?
 * I answer nought but ho, ho, ho!


 * 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!


 * 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!


 * 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!


 * 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,
 * 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!


 * 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!


 * 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!


 * 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.