'bran was daily let down into the dungeon for his support: but neither 'meat nor corn was allowed to him; and

Rattes and myce and suche smal dere

Was his mete that seven yere'.'

Besides these two references in Shakespeare's text, we find a third in The First Part of the Contention, which is either an imperfect version of 2. Henry VI., or, as some maintain, the original of it:

have at you Peter with downright blowes, as Bevys of South-hampton fell upon Askapart.

The words in italics are wanting in 2. Henry VI. (cf. Act II, 111, 92). 2 Ascapart was a formidable giant subdued by Bevis, whose page he then became.

SIR EGLAMOUR.

2

'Shakespeare may possibly have had this hero in his mind when 'he calls one of his characters by his name in the Two Gentlemen of "Verona: "What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour"'3 (Act I, 11, 9). This knight "valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd" becomes the agent for Silvia in her escape in a later part of the drama. The Romance was 'printed at Edinburgh in 1508 by Walter Chapman, 'and subsequently at London by Copland and Walley'. It is entered on the Stat. Reg., Jan. 15, 1582.

THE SQUIRE OF LOW DEGREE.

This is the title of a most popular romance, which begins thus: "It was a squyer of lowe degrè".-It is alluded to by Fluellen: "You called me yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you to-day "a squire of low degree."

(Henry V., Act V, sc. I, 36). A reprint will be found in Hazlitt's 'Early Popular Poetry', vol. II.

4

1 Ellis, ut sup., p. 256; Kölbing, p. 75, var. lectio.

2 They are wanting in the Folio. Perhaps they ought to be inserted into Shakespeare's text.

These are J. O. Halliwell's words (Percy's MS., II, 338). He adds "The name, 'however, appears to have passed into a kind of proverb. So in Dekker's Satiro"mastix: “Adieu, Sir Eglamore! adieu, lute-string", etc. I find nothing in this passage, which points to a proverbial use of the name. The words referred to by Halliwell are spoken by Tucca, who alludes to all manner of persons and things under the sun à la Pistol.

4 "The squyre of Low deggre' I find entered in the Stat. Reg., 10. June 1560. (Arber, I, 128)

Anders, Shakespeare's books.

11

SIR TOPAS

deserves a passing notice and I prefer to mention him here. He is made the hero of a burlesque ballad by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales. "The tale of Sir Topas' is mentioned by Puttenham (cf. ante, p. 156) as forming part of the stock of the Cantabanqui and Minstrels. The name, Sir Topas, is assumed by the clown in Twelfth Night (IV, 11). But 'Sir Tophas' is also in Lyly's Endymion.

CHARLEMAGNE ROMANCES.

Enormous though the popularity was which these romances enjoyed in the middle ages, the English versions never took very deep root. It is therefore not suprizing to find but few and faint traces of the Charlemagne cycle in Shakespeare's works.

In 1. Henry VI., Act I, 11, 29-31, Alençon is made to refer to the two most famous paladins of Charles the Great:

Froissart, a countryman of ours, records,

England all Olivers and Rowlands bred

During the time Edward the Third did reign. 1

2

1

Of the Charlemagne Romances, there is only one with which, we can say, Shakespeare is in some way connected, whether directly or indirectly. This is 'Huon of Bordeaux', which was translated from the French original by Lord Berners, about 1530, who, be it remembered, was also the translator of Froissart's Chronicle. Of the popularity of Huon of Bordeaux in England there is no lack of evidence. We know, too, from some entries in Henslowe's Diary, that the romance had been dramatized and produced on the London stage in 1593 and 1594. From these and other considerations we see that Oberon, who, in the old romance, plays almost as important a rôle as Huon himself, had been naturalized in England long before Shakespeare classicized him for ever, in his Mids. Night's Dream.

Apart from the name and the sovereignty in fairy land, Shakespeare's Oberon has in common with his medieval predecessor the circumstance that his kingdom is situated in the far East. Compare, e. g., Mids. N. Dr., II, 1, 68, where Titania asks Oberon:

Why art thou here,

Come from the farthest steppe of India?

1 The particular passage in Froissart, if any, alluded to here, has not been identified yet.

2 Edited, with an introduction, by Sidney Lee, Early Engl. Text Soc., XL.

It is possible, too, that we have an allusion to 'Huon of Bordeaux' in Much Ado About Nothing, II, 1, 271 ff., where Benedick declares he would rather fetch a toothpick from the furthest inch of Asia, bring the length of Prester John's foot, fetch a hair off the great Cham's beard, than hold three words' conference with Beatrice. Here there may be a reference to the grotesque task imposed upon Huon who was to go to Babylon and, among other things, to rob the 'Admiral (!) Gaudis' of a handful of hair from his beard and of four of his largest teeth.'

FOLK-BALLADS.

ROBIN HOOD.

William Shakespeare's fondness for Robin Hood, the people's darling, celebrated in so many ballads, is evinced by some striking allusions in his dramas. First, in As You Like It (I, 1, 119) we have a passage which might be set as a fit motto before this exquisite pastoral drama: Oliver: Where will the old duke live?

Charles: They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.2

Under the greenwood tree Robin Hood and his merry men of the ballads have their abode. Compare As You Like It, II, v, 1: Under the greenwood tree3

Who loves to lie with me, etc.

Compare also 'My Robin is to the Greenwood gone' (see post, p. 178). The two most prominent companions of Robin Hood were Little John and Scarlet, referred to by Shakespeare in 'The Merry Wives', I, 1, 177, where Falstaff addresses the red-faced Bardolph as "Scarlet and "John”, and in 2. Henry IV., Act V, III, 107, where Silence sings,. "And "Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John". This is a line occurring in THE JOLLY PINDER OF WAKEFIELD (Child III, 131) st. 3:

1 Of 'The King of Fairies', a play referred to by Nash (1589) and Greene (1592), nothing further is known (cf. Fleay, 'Drama', II, 279, 283). I cannot think that Greene's Oberon (in James IV.) is the father of Shakespeare's Oberon.

2 The German translation by Schlegel is wretched: 'da leben sie wie Zigeunervolk.... und versaufen sorglos die Zeit wie im goldnen Alter'.

3 The whole line occurs frequently, as a standing phrase, in the R. H. ballads. Compare, e. g., Child III, p. 71, st. 310, 312; p. 72, st. 328; 335; p. 74, st. 377; p. 97, st. 2; 98, st. 23; 113, st. 83; 115a, etc.

All this beheard three witty young men,

'Twas Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.

The ballad was well known in Shakespeare's days, being quoted from in three contemporary dramas, and mentioned as early as 1557 in the Stationers' Registers. It is therefore extremely probable that this is the ballad which Shakespeare is quoting.'

1

In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Acts IV & V, we find a band of civil robbers introduced, who "detest such vile base practices" as "outrages on silly women or poor passengers". Of their resemblance to Robin Hood's outlawed company Shakespeare is so fully aware that he puts the following expression into the mouth of one of them: "By the "bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar." This Friar, however, known as Tuck, does no more belong to the popular Robin Hood ballads than Maid Marian (mentioned in 1. Henry IV, Act, III, III, 129) both of whom owe their association with Robin Hood primarily to the May-games and morris dance. In the truly popular ballads Friar Tuck is never 'heard of, and in only two even of the broadsides, Robin Hood and 'Queen Katherine and Robin Hood's Golden Prize, is he so much as 'named; in both no more than named, and in both in conjunction 'with Maid Marian,' 'who appears elsewhere only in a late and entirely 'insignificant ballad'. (see Child, III, 122 & 43f.) 3

A NOTE.

It is supposed that the following passage in Much Ado (I, 1, 259), Benedick: If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder, and called Adam,— contains an allusion to the famous archer Adam Bell, celebrated in a wellknown ballad: 'Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly' (Child, III, 14). But this is by no means self-evident.

1.As to the old tune, comp. Chappell (old ed. 393).

2 It must be admitted, however, that the names Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John are to be found together, in this order, in a later version of R. H. and Queen Katherine 1,2 (Child, III, 202); Compare, too, Child, III, 147, st. 1; III, 132 b, c; III, 171, st. 1. A passage:

"No man may compare with Robin Hood,

"With Robin Hood's Slathbatch and John a".

occurs in a poem in the prose 'History of George a Green' (see Thoms, Early Engl. Prose Rom., 1858, II, 189.-Slathbatch-Scarlet). And who knows whether some lost ballad does not contain the same words quoted by Silence.

3 A Robin Hood motif is introduced into 1. Henry VI., Act II, ш, where Talbot, imprisoned by the Countess of Auvergne, summons his companions by blowing his horn

NARRATIVE ART-BALLADS.

A SONG OF A BEGGAR AND A KING.

(KING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR-MAID.)

1

This ballad is preserved in 'A Crowne-Garland of Goulden Roses' (1st. ed., 1612) by Richard Johnson, reprinted by the Percy Society, vol. VI. It was repeated by Percy in his Reliques. The ballad of King Cophetua is referred to by Shakespeare on five different occasions: 1) In Love's Lab. Lost, I, II, Armado, who is "in love with a "base wench", asks Moth: "what great men have been in love?" Moth reminds him of Hercules and Samson. Not content with these authorities he says (1. 114):

Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?

Moth: The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since: but I think now 'tis not to be found; or, if it were, it would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.

Arm. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may example my digression by some mighty precedent.

2) To the same ballad Armado's long letter (Love's L. L., IV, 1, 60—88) is full of allusions. The beggar-maid is here called Zenelophon. In the ballad, Penelophon.

3) Richard II., Act V, III, 77:

The Duchess (within):

Speak with me, pity me, open the door:

A beggar begs that never begg'd before.

Bolingbroke, the King: Our scene is alter'd from a serious thing,
And now changed to 'The Beggar and the King'.

4) The opening words of the second stanza of the ballad are particularly alluded to in 'Romeo' (II, 1, 11f.):

Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,

One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,

When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!

5) A fifth allusion is in 2. Henry IV., Act V, 111, 105-6, where Falstaff affectedly says to Pistol:

O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?

Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.

1 Also Ballad Soc., Roxb. Ball., vol. VI, pp. 659, 661, both versions. Tennyson, it is almost impertinent to mention this, has written a poem on the same subject.