"
Robin put on his harper's cloak, while Little John painted his eyebrows
and cheeks, tipped his nose with red, and tied him on a comely beard.
Marian confessed, that had she not been present at the metamorphosis,
she should not have known her own true Robin. Robin took his harp
and went to the wedding.
Robin found the bishop and his train in the church porch,
impatiently expecting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom.
The clerk was observing to the bishop that the knight was somewhat gouty,
and that the necessity of walking the last quarter of a mile from
the road to the churchyard probably detained the lively bridegroom
rather longer than had been calculated upon.
"Oh! by my fey," said the music-loving bishop, "here comes a harper
in the nick of time, and now I care not how long they tarry.
Ho! honest friend, are you come to play at the wedding?"
"I am come to play anywhere," answered Robin, "where I can get a cup of sack;
for which I will sing the praise of the donor in lofty verse, and emblazon
him with any virtue which he may wish to have the credit of possessing,
without the trouble of practising.
"A most courtly harper," said the bishop; "I will fill thee with sack;
I will make thee a walking butt of sack, if thou wilt delight my ears
with thy melodies."
"That will I," said Robin; "in what branch of my art shall I exert
my faculty? I am passing well in all, from the anthem to the glee,
and from the dirge to the coranto.
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