Mary Hamilton
No: 173; variant: 173C
- THERE lived a lord into the west,
And he had dochters three,
And the youngest o them is to the king's court,
To learn some courtesie.
- She was not in the king's court
A twelvemonth and a day,
Till she was neither able to sit nor gang,
Wi the gaining o some play.
- She went to the garden,
To pull the leaf aff the tree,
To tak this bonnie babe frae her breast,
But alas it would na do!
- She rowed it in her handkerchief,
And threw it in the sea:
'O sink ye, swim ye, wee wee babe!
Ye'll get nae mair o me.'
- Word is to the kitchen gane,
And word is to the ha,
That Mary Myle she goes wi child
To the highest Steward of a'.
- Down and came the queen hersell,
The queen hersell so free:
'O mary Myle, whare is the child
That I heard weep for thee?'
- 'O hold your tongue now, Queen,' she says,
'O hold your tongue so free!
For it was but a shower o the sharp sickness,
I was almost like to die.'
- 'O busk ye, busk ye, Mary Myle,
O busk, and go wi me;
O busk ye, busk ye, Mary Mile,
It's Edinburgh town to see.'
- 'I'll no put on my robes o black,
No nor yet my robes [o] brown;
But I'll put on my golden weed,
To shine thro Edinburgh town.'
- When she went up the Cannongate-side,
The Cannongate-side so free,
Oh there she spied some ministers' lads,
Crying Och and alace for me!
- 'Dinna cry och and alace for me!
Dinna cry o[c]h and alace for me!
For it's all for the sake of my innocent babe
That I come here to die.'
- When she went up the Tolbooth-stair,
The lap cam aff her shoe;
Before that she came down again,
She was condemned to die.
- 'O all you gallant sailors,
That sail upon the sea,
Let neither my father nor mother know
The death I am to die!
- 'O all you gallant sailors,
That sail upon the faem,
Let neither my father nor mother know
But I am coming hame!
- 'Little did my mother know,
The hour that she bore me,
What lands I was to travel in,
What death I was to die.
- 'Little did my father know,
When he held up my head,
What lands I was to travel in,
What was to be my deid.
- 'Yestreen I made Queen Mary's bed,
Kembed doun her yellow hair;
Is this the reward I am to get,
To tread this gallows-stair!'