[72] [This song is quoted in "A Pore Helpe," probably printed many years before "Ralph Roister Doister." See Hazlitt's "Popular Poetry," ii., 260. It therefore seems likely that in this, as in other cases, Udall introduced a song popular at the time, and the composition of some one else.]
[73] i.e., "I had not so much, I wot not when: never since I was born, I ween." She here speaks a rustic dialect.—Cooper.
[74] Her re-entrance is not marked.—Cooper.
[75] [Orig. reads, what.]
[76] Joke.—Borde, bourd, or boord, as the word is spelled by Spenser, means a jest or sport; from the French Bourde—
"Of old adventures that fell white,
And some of bourdes and ribaudry."
—Lay le Freine. See Toone's Glossary.—Cooper.
[77] Seriously whispering—
"And in his ear him rounded close behind."