Percy MS., p. 90; Hales and Furnivall, I, 235.
This fine ballad was printed in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, III, 48, ed. of 1765, "with considerable corrections." The information given by a page, the reward promised and the alternative punishment threatened him, the savage vengeance taken on the lady and the immediate remorse, are repeated in '[Little Musgrave],' No 81. So the "Sleep you, wake you" of 41, a frequent formula for such occasions,[135] which we find in 'Earl Brand,' No 7, D 1, 'King Arthur and King Cornwall,' No 30, st. 493; '[Clerk Saunders],' No 69, F 4; '[Willie and Lady Maisry],' No 70, B 2, 11; '[The Bent sae Brown],' No 71, st. 5; ['Lord Thomas and Fair Annet,' No 73, E] 5; 'Sweet William's Ghost,' No 77, B 2; '[Jellon Grame],' A 4; 'The Drowned Lovers,' Buchan, I, 140, st. 11; 'Jock o the Side,' Caw's Museum, st. 16; 'Kinmont Willie,' Scott, st. 35; 'The Baron of Brackley,' Scarce Ancient Ballads, st. 2; the song or ballad in 'King Lear,' III, 6, 40; Ravenscroft's Pammelia, 1609, No 30; the interlude of 'The Four Elements' (Steevens); Íslenzk Fornkvæði, II, 115, st. 26, 27; 'Der todte Freier,' Erk's Liederhort, p. 75, No 24a, Deutsches Museum, 1852, II, 167=Mittler No 545, Wunderhorn, IV, 73, etc., and Deutsches Museum, 1862, II, 803, No 10; Ampère, Instructions, p. 36; Coussemaker, No 48, st. 5; Kolberg, Pieśni ludu Polskiego, No 7e, st. 8; etc.
Old Robin, instead of attaching a cross of red cloth to the right shoulder of his coat or cloak, shapes the cross in his shoulder "of white flesh and of red," st. 32; that is, burns the cross in with a hot iron, as was done sometimes by the unusually devout or superstitious, or for a pious fraud: Mabillon, Annales, ad annum 1095, cited by Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, I, 110, note, ed. 1825.
Translated by Bodmer, I, 153; by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, No 66.
1 God let neuer soe old a man
Marry soe yonge a wiffe
As did Old Robin of Portingale;
He may rue all the dayes of his liffe.
2 Ffor the maiors daughter of Lin, God wott,
He chose her to his wife,
And thought to haue liued in quiettnesse
With her all the dayes of his liffe.
3 They had not in their wed-bed laid,
Scarcly were both on sleepe,
But vpp shee rose, and forth shee goes
To Sir Gyles, and fast can weepe.
4 Saies, Sleepe you, wake you, faire Sir Gyles?
Or be not you within?
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .