Brogan Franklin - "The Mad-Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow" (attributed to Ben Jonson)

            The Mad-Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow is attributed to Ben Jonson (1572-1637) and was written at a time when the Robin Goodfellow/Puck character had gained additional popularity in England due to its appearance in plays such as William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Although this ballad's presentation of Robin Goodfellow as a crude and mischievous hobgoblin fits with how the character is described in common English folklore, Allen W. Wright notes in his article "Puck Through the Ages" that this depiction of "Robin Goodfellow" is much different than Shakespeare's civilized and sanitized version of "Puck."

            One philosophy that I applied to translating this text was to modernize all of the spellings so that it became much easier to read and comprehend.  For example, the most common change that I made was deleting every ending "-e" (in words such as "goe," "doe," flye," and "spye") if the Standard American English version of the word did not end with an "-e."  Another decision I made was to gloss easily definable out-of-use words (such as "whirry," "tow," and "wend") and to footnote out-of-use words that would benefit from both a definition and a comment on possible variations in meaning (such as "fease," "hearth," and "gloss").  Footnotes were also given to any words or phrases that required historical context.  Furthermore, because I was working with a ballad that was set to a specific tune, I decided not to make any changes that would alter the meter.  Therefore, I kept "o'er" instead of switching it to the more modern form, "over," because that change would have resulted in an inconsistent number of syllables.  Finally, I did not make any changes to the punctuation or capitalization contained in the original text because I wanted my translation to appear aesthetically and stylistically similar.

Works Cited

"Feeze."  The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, Volume 2.  Century Company, 1914. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.

"Heydeguyes."  Colonial Dictionary.  Colonial Sense, 2012.  Web. 7 Dec. 2012.

Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press, 2012. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.

Wright, Allen W.  Puck: That Shrewd and Knavish Sprite Called Robin Goodfellow.  Allen W.      Wright, 2004. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.

The Mad-Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow[1]

(To the tune of Dulcina)

Attributed to Ben Jonson - 1628

From Oberon[2] in Fairy Land

the King of Ghosts and shadows[3] there,

Mad Robin I at his command,

am sent to view the night sports here.

What revel[4] rout°                                                                                                               °gathering

Is kept about

In every corner where I go,

I will o'er see,[5]

And merry be,

And make good sport with ho ho ho.[6]

More swift than[7] lightning can I fly,

and round about this ayrie[8] welkin° soon,                                                                                  °sky

And in a minute's space descry°                                                                                         °perceive

each thing that's done beneath the Moon:

There's not a Hag

Nor Ghost shall wag,

Nor cry Goblin where I do go,

But Robin I

Their feats will spy

And fear them home with ho ho ho.

If any wanderers I meet

that from their night sports do trudge° home                                                        °walk laboriously

With counterfeiting voice I greet,

and cause them on with me to roam

Through woods, through lakes,

Through bogs, through brakes°                                                                             °clumps of bushes

O'er bush and brier with them I go,

I call upon

Them to come on,

And wend° me laughing ho ho ho.                                                                °change their direction

Sometimes I meet them like a man,

sometimes an ore, sometimes a hound,

And to a horse I turn me can,

to trip and trot about them round.

But if to ride

By back they stride,

More swift than wind away I go,

O'er hedge and lands,

Through pools and ponds,

I whirry° laughing ho ho ho.                                                                            °rapidly/continuously

When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets[9] and with junkets[10] fine,

Unseen of all the company,

I eat their cakes and sip their wine:

and to make sport,

I fart and snort,

And out the candles I do blow,

The maids I kiss,

They shriek who's this

I answer nought but ho ho ho.

Yet now and then the maids to please,

I card° at midnight up their wool:                                                               °combing out impurities

And while they sleep, I snort, fart, and fease,[11]                                                                    

with wheel to threads their flax I pull:

I grind at mill

Their malt up hill,

I dress their hemp, I spin their tow°                                                             °unworked fiber of flax

If any wake,

And would me take,

I wend° me laughing ho ho ho.                                                                                               °depart       

When house or hearth[12] do sluttish lie,

I pinch the Maids there black and blue,

And from the bed, the bed-clothes I

pull off, and lay them naked to view:

twixt° sleep, and wake                                                                                                         °between

I do them take,

And on the key cold floor them throw,

If out they cry

Then forth fly I,

and loudly laugh I ho ho ho.

When any need to borrow ought,°                                                                                      °anything

we lend them what they do require,

And for the use demand we nought,°                                                                                              °nothing

our own is all we do desire:

If to repay

They do delay

Abroad amongst them then I go,

And night by night

I them affright

With pinching, dreams, and ho ho ho.

When lazy queens have naught to do,

but study how to cog° and lie,                                                                                                             °cheat

To make debate and mischief too

twixt one another secretly:

I mark their gloss[13]

And do disclose

To them that they had wronged so,

When I have done

I get me gone

And leave them scolding ho ho ho.

When men do traps and engines set

in loop-holes where the vermin creep,

That from their folds° and houses fet[14]                                                    °pen for domestic animals

their ducks and geese, their lambs and sheep,

I spy the gin

And enter in,

And seems a vermin taken so

But when they there

approach me near

I leap out laughing ho ho ho.

By Wells and Gills[15] in meadows green,                                                                   

we nightly dance our heydeguyes,[16]

And to our fairy king and queen

we chant our moon-light harmonies,

When larks 'gin[17] sing                                                                                                

Away we fling,

And babes newborn steal as we go,

An elf in bed

We leave instead,

And wend us laughing ho ho ho.

From hag-bred Merlins, time have I

thus nightly reveled to and fro:

And for my pranks men call me by

the name of Robin Goodfellow:

Fiends, ghosts, and sprites

That haunt the nights,

The Hags and Goblins do me know,

And Beldames° old                                                                                                        °old women

By feats have told,

So Vale, Vale°, ho ho ho.                                                                                         °farewell (Latin)

F I N I S.°                                                                                                                       °end (Latin)

London, Printed for H.G.[18]

---

[1] Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck, is a common character in English fairy mythology.  An example of a Puck character can be found in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (OED).  The original spelling of "Robbin Good-fellow" has been altered so that there is only one "b" and there is no hyphen in "Goodfellow".

[2]  Oberon is the king of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Oberon is often presented as Robin Goodefellow's father.  (Allen W. Wright)

[3] The original "shadowes" was replaced with the Standard American English "shadows."  Any time there was an ending "-e" that is no longer in use, I deleted it. 

[4] The original "revell" was changed to "revel" by dropping the second "l."  To "revel" is "to engage in wild or noisy recreation or festivities, esp. those involving drinking and dancing" (OED).

[5] I kept all uses of "o'er," instead of changing them to "over," in order to keep the meter consistent, which is important in a ballad.

[6] "Ho ho ho" is Robin Goodfellow's trademark laugh (Allen W. Wright).

[7] "Then" was changed to "than" so that the line made sense.  This change is repeated throughout.

[8] After much deliberation, I chose to keep the original word, "ayrie," instead of changing it to "airy," which was used in Allen W. Wright's translation.  "Ayrie" is "a high vantage point," which fits with the context of the stanza (OED).

[9] "Possets" are drinks "made from hot milk curdled with ale, wine, or other liquor, flavored with sugar, herbs, spices, etc" (OED).  They were considered delicacies.

[10] "Junkets" are dishes "consisting of curds sweetened and flavored, served with a layer of scalded cream on the top"  (OED).  They were also considered delicacies.

[11] "Fease," which was also written as "feeze," seems to have been used as a double entendre.  It can mean both "to sneeze," which fits with the two words that immediately precede it, and it can also mean "to untwist the ends of anything made of threads," which fits with the references made to wool, threads, flax, hemp, and tow (The Century Dictionary).

[12] The word used in the original text is "harth," which is the abbreviated form of "hearth."  A "hearth" can mean either the "floor of a fireplace" or the "home" (OED). In this context, I believe "hearth" is used to mean the latter.

[13] One definition of "gloss" is a "deceptive appearance" (OED).  By marking the gloss, the speaker reveals to the wronged individuals what the lazy queens have tried to disguise.

[14] "Fet" is an abbreviated form of "fetch."  I decided not to change the original "fet" to "fetch" because I did not want to disrupt the rhyme.  (OED)

[15] "Wells" and "Gills" appeared as "Wels" and "Gils" in the original text.  I changed them both to the modern spelling with the extra "-l."  A "gill" is "a deep rocky cleft or ravine, usually wooded and forming the course of a stream." (OED)

[16] The original word, "heyday guise," was an incorrect phonetic spelling.  The word that the writer was trying to produce was likely "heydeguyes," which was a"16th and 17th century country dance." (Colonial Dictionary)

[17] Allen W. Wright's translation adds an apostrophe before the word "gin" in order to suggest that it is an abbreviation for "again."  I kept "gin" because I did not want to disrupt the meter, but I did add the apostrophe.

[18] According to Allen W. Wright's introduction, this ballad was published in London by Henry Gosson ("H.G.") as part of the 1628 Roxburghe Ballads.