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Merry Songs and Ballads
OLD SIMON THE KINGE
[b. 1575]
[This version from Percy Folio Manuscript, 1620–50, p. 519 of MS.; tune in Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719), iii. 143].
In an humor I was of late,
as many good fellowes bee
that thinke of no matter of state,
but thé keepe merry Companye:
that best might please my mind,
soe I walket vp & downe the towne,
but company none cold I ffind
till I came to the signe of the crowne.
mine ostes was sicke of the mumpes,
her mayd was ffisle att ease,
mine host lay drunke in his dumpes;
"they all had but one disease,"
sayes old simon the King, sayes old Simon the
King,
