In Fletcher's "Monsieur Thomas," 1639, a maid sings—
"Come to my window, love, come, come, come!
Come to my window, my dear:
The wind and the rain
Shall trouble thee again,
But thou shalt be lodged here."—Act III. Sc. iii.
In Fletcher's "The Woman's Prize," 1640, Jaques says—
"A moral, sir; the ballad will express it:
The wind and the rain
Have turn'd you back again,
And you cannot be lodged there."—Act I. Sc. iii.
It is evident that this ballad was very familiar in the latter part of the 16th century, and we find that on March 4, 1587-8, John Wolfe had a licence to print a ballad, entitled "Goe from my Window." It was one of those early songs parodied in "Ane compendious booke of Godly and Spirituall Songs," Edinburgh, 1590. This begins—
"Quho (who) is at my windo, who, who?
Goe from my windo; goe, goe.
Quha calls there, so like a strangere?
Goe from my windo, goe!"
At the end of Heywood's "Rape of Lucrece," 1638, is—
"Begone, begone, my Willie, my Billie,
Begone, begone, my deere;
The weather is warm, 'twill doe thee no harm,
Thou canst not be lodged here."
And in this form it appears in "Wit and Drollery," 1661, p. 25.
In "Pills to Purge Melancholy," 1719, iv. 44, is another version of the song, beginning, "Arise arise, my juggy, my puggy." The tune is found in what is erroneously called Queen Elizabeth's "Virginal Book," and in "A New Book of Tablature," 1596; and in Morley's "First Book of Concert Lessons," 1599; and in Robinson's "Schoole of Musick," 1603. In the "Dancing Master," from 1650 to 1680, the tune is given under the title of "The New Exchange, or Durham Stable," but altered into 6-4 time to fit it for dancing.