In Wakefield there lives a jolly pindèr,
in Wakefield all on a green,
in Wakefield all on a green;
There is neither knight nor squire, said the pindèr,
nor baron that is so bold,
nor baron that is so bold;
Dare make a trespàss to the town of Wakefield,
but his pledge goes to the pinfold, &c.
All this be heard three witty young men,
'twas Robin Hood, Scarlet and John, &c.
With that they espy'd the jolly pindèr,
as he sat under a thorn, &c.
Now turn again, turn again, said the pindèr,
for a wrong way you have gone, &c.
For you have forsaken the king's high-way,
and made a path over the corn, &c.
O that were great shame, said jolly Robin,
we being three, and thou but one, &c.
The pinder leapt back then thirty good foot,
'twas thirty good foot and one, &c.
He leaned his back fast unto a thorn,
and his foot against a stone, &c.
And there they fought a long summer's day,
a summer's day so long, &c.
Till that their swords on their broad bucklèrs,
were broke fast into their hands, &c.
Hold thy hand, hold thy hand, said bold Robin Hood,
and my merry men everyone, &c.
For this is one of the best pindèrs,
that ever I tryed with sword, &c.
And wilt thou forsake thy pinder's craft,
and live in the green-wood with me? &c.
At Michaelmas next my cov'nant comes out,
when every man gathers his fee, &c.
I'll take my blew blade all in my hand
And plod to the green-wood with thee, &c.
Hast thou either meat or drink? said Robin Hood,
for my merry men and me, &c.
I have both bread and beef, said the pindèr,
and good ale of the best, &c.
And that is meat good enough, said Robin Hood,
for such unbidden guest, &c.
O wilt thou forsake the pinder his craft,
and go to the green-wood with me? &c.
Thou shalt have a livery twice in the year,
the one green, the other brown, &c.
If Michaelmas day was come and gone,
and my master had paid me my fee,
and my master had paid me my fee,
Then would I set as little by him,
as my master doth by me,
as my master doth by me.
[NOTES]
[1] In his Elizabethan Drama, ii. 376.
[2] As does Ingram in his Christopher Marlowe and his Associates.
[3] Nash repeatedly bears witness to Greene's popularity. "In a night and a day would he have yarkt up a pamphlet as well as in seven year, and glad was that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear for the very dregs of his wit" (Strange News). Harvey condemns him for "putting forth new, newer, and newest books of the maker" (Four Letters). Greene remained popular long after his death. In Sir Thomas Overbury's "Character" of A Chambermaid, he tells us "She reads Greene's works over and over"; and Anthony Wood informs us that since Greene's time his works "have been mostly sold on ballad-mongers' stalls." In the introduction to Rowland's 'Tis Merrie when Gossips meete (1602), (Hunterian Club Publications, vol. i.) there is a dialogue indicating that Greene's works are still in demand. Ben Jonson in Every Man out of his Humour (1599) alludes to Greene's works, whence one "may steal with more security," referring undoubtedly, as does Rowland, to the great mass of Greene's published work.
[4] Upon which Nash comments: "Let other men (as they please) praise the mountain that in seven years brings forth a mouse, or the Italianate pen, that of a packet of pilfries, affordeth the press a pamphlet or two in an age, and then in dignified array, vaunts Ovid's and Plutarch's plumes as their own; but give me the man, whose extemporal vein in any humour, will excel our greatest art master's deliberate thoughts; whose invention quicker than his eye, will challenge the proudest rhetorician, to the contention of like perfection, with like expedition."—(Prefatory Address to Greene's Menaphon.)
[5] "But I thank God that he put it in my head, to lay open the most horrible cosenages of the common Conny-catchers, Coseners, and Cross-biters, which I have indifferently handled in those my several discourses already imprinted. And my trust is that these discourses will do great good, and be very beneficial to the commonwealth of England."—The Repentance of Robert Greene.
[6] It is regretfully that one recognises that Collins does not belong at the head of this list. The surprising defects of the long-awaited definitive edition of Greene must now speak for themselves; its manifest excellences are well able to do so.
[7] Writing in Notes and Queries, 1905.