whose doughty dismal fame,
From Dis to Daedalus, from post to pillar,
Is blown abroad, help me, thy poor well willer,
And, with thy twinkling eyes, look right and straight
Upon this mighty _morr_--of mickle weight--
_Is_--now comes in, which being glu'd together
Makes _morris_, and the cause that we came hether,
The body of our sport, of no small study.
I first appear, though rude, and raw, and muddy,
To speak, before thy noble grace, this tenner;
At whose great feet I offer up my penner:
The next, the Lord of May and Lady bright,
The chambermaid and serving-man, by night
That seek out silent hanging: then mine host
And his fat spouse, that welcomes to their cost
The galled traveller, and with a beck'ning,
Inform the tapster to inflame the reck'ning:
Then the beast-eating clown, and next the fool,
The bavian, with long tail and eke long tool;
_Cum multis aliis_ that make a dance:
Say 'Ay,' and all shall presently advance."

Among the scattered allusions to the characters of this dance may be
noticed that in "1 Henry IV." (iii. 3): "and for womanhood, Maid Marian
may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee"--the allusion being to "the
degraded Maid Marian of the later morris-dance, more male than
female."[659]

[659] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 550.

The "hobby-horse," another personage of the morris-dance on May day, was
occasionally omitted, and appears to have given rise to a popular
ballad, a line of which is given by "Hamlet" (iii. 2):

"For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot."

This is quoted again in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iii. 1). The hobby-horse
was formed by a pasteboard horse's head, and a light frame made of
wicker-work to join the hinder parts. This was fastened round the body
of a man, and covered with a foot-cloth which nearly reached the ground,
and concealed the legs of the performer, who displayed his antic
equestrian skill, and performed various juggling tricks, to the
amusement of the bystanders. In Sir Walter Scott's "Monastery" there is
a spirited description of the hobby-horse.

The term "hobby-horse" was applied to a loose woman, and in the
"Winter's Tale" (i. 2) it is so used by Leontes, who says to Camillo:

"Then say
My wife's a hobby-horse; deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to
Before her troth-plight."

In "Othello" (iv.