Introduction
The date of this unpublished ballad is uncertain. It survives only in an undated fair copy manuscript in the Princeton/Troxell Collection. A pencil notation by DGR at the foot of the recto suggests that the original manuscript, written in ink, was being reconsidered by DGR at some later date. Similar notations appear on other early manuscripts by DGR.
At the end of the ballad, on the verso, stands the opening lines of a fair copy of another ballad,
also unpublished, which is titled
“Fortuna”
. It is
clear that this second text is only a fragment because the subsequent document page is missing.