# 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—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.