Watkin's Ale

DESCRIPTION: A girl laments "I am afraid to die a maid." A man overhears and offers her "Watkin's Ale." She accepts. After much witty repartee, they part. Nine months later, her child is born. The moral: "It is no jesting with sharp-edged tools."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: mentioned twice in 1592 (Munday, Chettle)
KEYWORDS: seduction pregnancy sex bawdy bastard
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime, pp. 136-137, "Watkin's Ale" (1 tune, partial text)
Chappell/Wooldridge-OldEnglishPopularMusic I, p. 265, "Watkin's Ale" (1 tune)
Olson-BroadsideBalladIndex, ZN3278A, "As Watkin walked by the way" (also "There was a maid this other day")
DT, WATKALE*
NOTES [495 words]: Chappell in the nineteenth century deemed the text of this song unprintable, but it was not always so -- although the printer apparently was not willing to risk listing his name, and it does not seem to have been entered into the Stationer's Register. But A. W. Pollard, G. R. Redgrave, et al, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland & Ireland And of English Books Printed Abroad 1475-1640, The Bibliographical Society [of London], 1963, p. 585, #25107, is "A ditty delightfull of Mother Watkins ale," which they guess to be from around 1590.
This probably is not a traditional song; the words are too fiendishly clever and the music too complex to have arisen in oral tradition. The song is rather frequently mentioned, however, particularly for such a bawdy piece. Chances are it was popular enough to include here. And I happen to think it too clever to omit.
One bit of cleverness moderns may miss: It was normal for authors in medieval times to admit failures of wit and, perhaps, morality. (Often they still do, but buried at the end of the acknowledgments that no one reads.) But this song concludes, "If any here offended be, Then blame the author, blame not me." In other words, it simultaneously includes and subverts the traditional disclaimer: The author is to blame, but I'm not the author, except that the author wrote this....
In this, it follows Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales -- and even quotes Chaucer's language. In the prologue to the Miller's Tale, warns listeners that it is a "cherles tale" [churl's tale; line 3169], and if they are too delicate to hear a dirty story, "Turne over the leef and chese another tale" [Turn over the leaf and choose another tale; line 3177]. Three lines later, he writes,
Blameth noght me if that ye chese amys;
The Millere is a cherl, ye knowe well this.
[Blame not me if that you choose amiss; The Miller is a churl, you know well this; lines 3181-3182].
At least, "blameth noght me" is the reading of the modern editions (Chaucer/Donaldson, p. 107; Chaucer/Ross, p.129; Chaucer/Benson, p. 67, "Blameth nat me," which is the way the line is usually quoted). However, the apparatus on p. 129 of Chaucer/Ross read "Blameth ] Blame Pw TH¹-SP³." In other words, one manuscript (Petworth) and the editions from Thynne's first (1532) to Speght's third (1687) read "Blame," not "Blameth." Thus it is nearly certain that, if our author read Chaucer (and I do not say this as certainty, only a possibility), then he would have read Chaucer's line as "blame not me," and his quote would be exact.
Nor was Chaucer the only one to use this trick. William Caxton, too, used it at the end of his translation of "Reynard the Fox" (and Caxton, unlike Chaucer, has a legitimate right to disclaim what Reynard has done). Severs/Hartung, p. 784, summarizes Caxton's translation, ending with this: "Original portion of Epilogue. The fox, not Caxton, is to be blamed for everything displeasing in the book." - RBW
Bibliography

Chaucer/Benson: Larry D. Benson, general editor, The Riverside Chaucer, third edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1987 (based on F. N. Robinson, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, which is considered to be the first and second editions of this work)
Chaucer/Donaldson: E. Talbot Donaldson, editor, Chaucer's Poetry: An Anthology for the Modern Reader, second edition, The Ronald Press Company, 1958, 1975
Chaucer/Ross: Thomas W. Ross, editor, A Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Volume II, Part 3, The Miller's Tale, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983
Severs/Hartung: J. Burke Severs and Albert Hartung, editors, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050-1500, in ten volumes with continuous page numbering; Volume 3 (edited by Hartung), Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1972

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