But it would have made your heart right sair,
To see the bridegroom rive his hair.
THE NUTBROWN MAID
The Text is from Arnold’s Chronicle, of the edition which, from typographical evidence, is said to have been printed at Antwerp in 1502 by John Doesborowe. Each stanza is there printed in six long lines. Considerable variations appear in later editions. There is also a Balliol MS. (354), which contains a contemporary version, and the Percy Folio contains a corrupt version.
This should not be considered as a ballad proper; it is rather a ‘dramatic lyric.’ Its history, however, is quite as curious as that of many ballads. It occurs, as stated above, in the farrago known as the Chronicle of Richard Arnold, inserted between a list of the ‘tolls’ due on merchandise entering or leaving the port of Antwerp, and a table giving Flemish weights and moneys in terms of the corresponding English measures. Why such a poem should be printed in such incongruous surroundings, what its date or who its author was, are questions impossible to determine. Its position here is perhaps almost as incongruous as in its original place.
From 3.9 to the end of the last verse but one, it is a dialogue between an earl’s son and a baron’s daughter, in alternate stanzas; a prologue and an epilogue are added by the author.
Matthew Prior printed the poem in his works, in order to contrast it with his own version, Henry and Emma, which appealed to contemporary taste as more elegant than its rude original.