If you become a nun, dear,
A friar I will be;
In any cell you run, dear,
Pray look behind for me.
The roses all turn pale, too;
The doves all take the veil, too;
The blind will see the show.
What! you become a nun, my dear?
I’ll not believe it, no!
If you become a nun, dear,
The bishop Love will be;
The Cupids every one, dear,
Will chant “We trust in thee.”
The incense will go sighing,
The candles fall a-dying,
The water turn to wine;
What! you go take the vows, my dear?
You may—but they’ll be mine!
[1771] Rolland, op. cit. I, p. 253, cf. pp. 249-54.
[1772] Chants de Carnaval Florentins (Canti Carnascialeschi) de l’époque de Laurent le Magnifique. Pub. par P. M. Masson (Paris, 1913). For a copy of the song and for the suggestion that it refers to English nuns I am indebted to Mr E. J. Dent of King’s College, Cambridge. But the mention of Low Germany sounds more like German nuns.
[1773] Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, Essays in the Study of Folksongs (Everyman’s Lib. Ed.), pp. 191-2.
[1774] L. A. v. Arnim and Clemens Brentano, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Reclam ed.), p. 50.
[1775] The Oxford Book of Ballads, ed. Quiller-Couch (1910), p. 635 (No. 125). In the long collection of ballads narrating Robin Hood’s career known as A Little Geste of Robin Hood and his Meiny (which was in print early in the sixteenth century) the Prioress is said to have conspired with her lover, one Sir Roger of Doncaster, to slay Robin. Ib. p. 574. In the version in Bishop Percy’s famous folio MS. “Red Roger” is described as stabbing the weakened outlaw, but losing his own life in the act. Bishop Percy’s Folio MS. ed. Hales and Furnivall (1867), I, pp. 50-58. “In ‘Le Morte de Robin Hode,’ a quite modern piece printed in Hone’s Every-day Book from an old collection of MS. songs in the Editor’s possession, the prioress is represented as the outlaw’s sister and as poisoning him.” Ib. p. 53.
[1776] Miracles de Nostre Dame par Personnages, pub. G. Paris and U. Robert (Soc. des Anc. Textes Français, 1876), t. I, pp. 311-51.
[1777] Translated in Evelyn Underhill, The Miracles of Our Lady Saint Mary (1905), pp. 195-200.
[1778] Caesarius of Heisterbach, II, pp. 41-2. “Although the buffet was hard,” says Caesarius, conscious perhaps that the Virgin had acted with less than her wonted gentleness, “she was utterly delivered from temptation by it. A grievous ill requires a grievous remedy.”
[1779] Gautier de Coincy, Miracles de N.D., ed. Poquet, p. 474.