ROB.  H. Alas, for woe! alack, that so great state
The malice of this world should ruinate! 
Come in, great lord, sit down and take thy ease,
Receive the seal, and pardon my offence. 
With me you shall be safe, and if you please,
Till Richard come, from all men’s violence. 
Aged Fitzwater, banished by John,
And his fair daughter shall converse with you: 
I and my men that me attend upon
Shall give you all that is to honour due. 
Will you accept my service, noble lord?

ELY.  Thy kindness drives me to such inward shame,
That, for my life, I no reply can frame. 
Go; I will follow.  Blessed may’st thou be,
That thus reliev’st thy foes in misery!

[Exeunt.

LIT.  JOHN.  Skelton, a word or two beside the play.

FRIAR.  Now, Sir John Eltham, what is’t you would say?

LIT.  JOHN.  Methinks, I see no jests of Robin Hood,
No merry morrices of Friar Tuck,
No pleasant skippings up and down the wood,
No hunting-songs, no coursing of the buck. 
Pray God this play of ours may have good luck,
And the king’s majesty mislike it not.

FRIAR.  And if he do, what can we do to that? 
I promis’d him a play of Robin Hood,
His honourable life in merry Sherwood. 
His majesty himself survey’d the plot,
And bad me boldly write it; it was good. 
For merry jests they have been shown before,
As how the friar fell into the well
For love of Jenny, that fair bonny belle;
How Greenleaf robb’d the Shrieve of Nottingham,
And other mirthful matter full of game.[230]
Our play expresses noble Robert’s wrong;
His mild forgetting treacherous injury: 
The abbot’s malice, rak’d in cinders long,
Breaks out at last with Robin’s tragedy. 
If these, that hear the history rehears’d,
Condemn my play, when it begins to spring,
I’ll let it wither, while it is a bud,
And never show the flower to the king.

LIT.  JOHN.  One thing beside:  you fall into your vein
Of ribble-rabble rhymes Skeltonical,
So oft, and stand so long, that you offend.

FRIAR.  It is a fault I hardly can amend. 
O, how I champ my tongue to talk these terms! 
I do forget ofttimes my friar’s part;
But pull me by the sleeve when I exceed,
And you shall see me mend that fault indeed.

        Wherefore, still sit you,
        Doth Skelton entreat you
        While he facete
        Will briefly repeat ye
        The history all
        And tale tragical,
        By whose treachery
        And base injury
        Robin the good,
        Call’d Robin Hood,
        Died in Sherwood. 
        Which till you see,
        Be ruled by me: 
        Sit patiently,
        And give a plaudite,
        If anything please ye.

[Exeunt.

ACT V., SCENE 1.