=A. Characters: their Sources.=--T. Warton, in 1785 (_Milton's Poems
on Several Occasions_), pointed out that "the names of some of
the characters as Sacrapant, Chorebus, and others, are taken from
the _Orlando Furioso_." Peele quotes Ariosto freely near the end
of _Edward I_. Storojenko (Grosart's _Greene_, I, 180) thinks the
Sacrapant in Greene's _Orlando Furioso_ "a very transparent parody of
_Tamburlaine_." Mr. Fleay, with some daring, asserts that Huanebango
is travestied from Huon o'Bordeaux, and is "palpably Harvey." Erestus,
says the same authority, is from Kyd's _Soliman and Perseda_; "the
play is evidently full of personal allusions, which time only can
elucidate." Mr. Ward remarks that Jack is "namesake and rival of the
immortal giant-killer." The classics, of course, are represented.
Warton remarked that the story of Meroe could be found in Adlington's
translation of Apuleius, 1566; but it is hardly necessary to go to such
a source for the "White Bear of England's Wood."
=B. The Song of the Harvesters=--When the harvest-men enter again, and
sing the song "doubled,"--as here,--it is evidently the same thing, a
companion piece, only with reaping in place of sowing, and words to
match:--
"Lo, here we come a-reaping, a-reaping,
To reap our harvest-fruit.
And thus we pass the year so long,
And never be we mute."
Is it too much, then, to assume that the present song is to be restored
somewhat as follows?--
Lo here we come a-sowing, a-sowing,
And sow sweet fruits of love.
All that lovers be pray you for me,--
In your sweethearts well may it prove.
They would naturally enter with motions of sowing or of reaping, and
the opening words would fit the action. Moreover, "In your sweethearts
well may it prove" must refer to requital not for the act of sowing,
but for the prayers invoked. These craft-songs were common enough.
In _Summer's Last Will and Testament_ the harvest-men sing an old
folk-song of this kind, if one may judge by the _Hooky, hooky_ of the
refrain, said by one of the Dodsley editors (ed. 1825, IX, 41) to
be heard still "in some parts of the kingdom." The curious in these
matters may find valuable information about songs of labour in general,
with imitative action and suitable refrains, in Bücher's _Arbeit und
Rhythmus_, Abhandlungen d. phil.-hist. Classe d. königl. Sächsischen
Gesell. d. Wissenschaften, Bd. XVII.
_Additional Note_--P. 368, l. 491, for 'church stile,' P. A. Daniel
queries 'church ale'?--but see Overbury' _Characters_ (_Works_, p.
145), "A Sexton": 'for at every church stile commonly ther's an
ale-house.'
_Robert Greene_