The Baffled Knight

A poem by Frank Sidgwick

The Text is from Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia (1609), reprinted almost verbatim in Tom Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy.


The Story was sufficiently popular not only to have been revived, at the end of the seventeenth century, but to have had three other 'Parts' added to it, the whole four afterwards being combined into one broadside.

In similar Spanish, Portuguese, and French ballads, the damsel escapes by saying she is a leper, or the daughter of a leper, or otherwise diseased. Much the same story is told in Danish and German ballads.


THE BAFFLED KNIGHT

1.
Yonder comes a courteous knight,
Lustely raking over the lay;
He was well ware of a bonny lasse,
As she came wand'ring over the way.
Then she sang downe a downe, hey downe derry (bis)

2.
'Jove you speed, fayre ladye,' he said,
'Among the leaves that be so greene;
If I were a king, and wore a crowne,
Full soone, fair lady, shouldst thou be a queen.

3.
'Also Jove save you, faire lady,
Among the roses that be so red;
If I have not my will of you,
Full soone, faire lady, shall I be dead.'

4.
Then he lookt east, then hee lookt west,
Hee lookt north, so did he south;
He could not finde a privy place,
For all lay in the divel's mouth.

5.
'If you will carry me, gentle sir,
A mayde unto my father's hall,
Then you shall have your will of me,
Under purple and under paule.'

6.
He set her up upon a steed,
And him selfe upon another,
And all the day he rode her by,
As though they had been sister and brother.

7.
When she came to her father's hall,
It was well walled round about;
She yode in at the wicket-gate,
And shut the foure-ear'd foole without.

8.
'You had me,' quoth she, 'abroad in the field,
Among the corne, amidst the hay,
Where you might had your will of mee,
For, in good faith, sir, I never said nay.

9.
'Ye had me also amid the field,
Among the rushes that were so browne,
Where you might had your will of me,
But you had not the face to lay me downe.'

10.
He pulled out his nut-browne sword,
And wipt the rust off with his sleeve,
And said, 'Jove's curse come to his heart,
That any woman would beleeve!'

11.
When you have your own true-love
A mile or twaine out of the towne,
Spare not for her gay clothing,
But lay her body flat on the ground.