To raise my spirits,
laid low by love,
I rode all alone the other day
by a wood.
I found there a shepherdess,
fine and beautiful,
innocent and at ease.
She was pasturing
her flock
on the green grass.
She had a fine
and comely body,
a red mouth and a laughing eye,
black
and well-placed eyebrows,
a white neck and a rosy complexion,
for nature
had exerted all her powers
to make such a child.
A! E! O!
She took her flute and her crook.
A! E! O!
She sang and played:
‘I see Emmelot coming
amidst the greenwood’.

I heard the lass who was playing the flute
and regaling herself;
because she was sweet and beautiful
I made my way towards her.
I said to her
like a courtly lover:
‘Lass, be mine’.
The shepherdess,
who was haughty,
was greatly taken aback.
Straightaway
I asked her for her love;
she said that she would never grant it.
She has taken Robin
as a lover
who has sworn and pledged to her
that all his life
he will never be allied or associated
with any other lover.
A! E! O!
‘Robin is a loyal friend.
A! E! O!
Get away!
Robin loves me with all his heart
and so I will never leave him.’

‘Noble and courteous lass,
worthy, with no baseness,
do not oppose me any further:
become my love.
Truly,
I will never give you
a black gown;
it will be of scarlet,
vermillion
and green, parti-coloured.’
She said:
‘Go back!
your declaration is worth nothing!’
I, who was smitten,
then took her
and put her beneath me by force;
forthwith
I played the ‘French game’
with her as I desired.
A! E! O!
‘Lass, how goes it now?’
A! E! O!
She cried aloud:
‘Damn anyone who cares
that Robin has guarded me badly’.