Ne no knyght, ne no squyèr,
That wolde be a good felawe.”
That very charming ballad of the Nut-Brown Maid must also have been well known to contemporaries of Caxton: She is daughter of a Baron, and her love has been won by a wayfarer, who says he is “an outlaw,” and a banished man, a squire of low degree. He tries her faith and constancy, as poor Griselda’s was tried in Chaucer’s story—in Boccaccio’s tale, and as men have tried and teased women from the beginning of time. He sets before her all the dangers and the taunts that will come to her; she must forswear her friends; she must go to the forest with him; she must not be jealous of any other maiden lying perdue there; she must dare all, and brave all,—
“Or else—I to the greenwood go
Alone, a banished man.”
At last, having tormented her sufficiently, he confesses—that he is not an outlaw—not a banished man, but one who will give her wealth, and rank, and name and fame. And I will close out our present talk with a verselet or two from this rich old ballad.
The wooer says—
“I counsel you, remember howe
It is no maydens law