Did they prevail with the scapegrace and stop him?"
JOSEPH CARNABY.
"The last who had spoken did slap him on the shoulder, saying, 'Jump
into the punt, lad, and across.' Thereupon did Will Shakspeare jump
into said punt, and begin to sing a song about a mermaid."
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
"Sir! is this credible? I will be sworn I never saw one; and verily
do believe that scarcely one in a hundred years doth venture so far
up the Avon."
SIR THOMAS.
"There is something in this. Thou mayest have sung about one,
nevertheless. Young poets take great liberties with all female
kind; not that mermaids are such very unlawful game for them, and
there be songs even about worse and staler fish. Mind ye that!
Thou hast written songs, and hast sung them, and lewd enough they
be, God wot!"
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
"Pardon me, your worship! they were not mine then. Peradventure the
song about the mermaid may have been that ancient one which every
boy in most parishes has been singing for many years, and, perhaps,
his father before him; and somebody was singing it then, mayhap, to
keep up his courage in the night."
SIR THOMAS.
"I never heard it."
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
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