O the month of May, the merry month of May, / So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green; / O and then did I unto my true love say, / Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer's queen.
—Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker's Holiday, first performed at the Rose Theatre, London, in 1599. Edited by Anthony Parr, 1975.