<P> The earliest extant score of the ballad appears in William Ballet's Lute Book (c. 1600) as Robin Hood is to the Greenwood Gone . References to the song can be dated back to 1586, in a letter from Sir Walter Raleigh to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester saying "The Queen is in very good terms with you now, and, thanks be to God, will be pacified, and you are again her Sweet Robin ." </P> <P> Although the words have been lost, it is suspected that the character Ophelia, of Hamlet (who is specified in the First Quarto to be a lutenist), sings the last line of the tune ("For bonny sweet Robin is all my Joy") during her madness (IV, v, 187). Some scholars believe that Shakespeare's choice of the song was meant to invoke phallic symbolism . </P> <P> As was common during the renaissance, many composers wrote variations or divisions based on the piece . Two sets of variations can be found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, one by John Munday and the other by Giles Farnaby . </P> <P> The work was commonly set for lute . It appears twice in William Ballet's lute book, in the Pickering Lute book, Anthony Holborne's Cittharn Schoole (1597), and Thomas Robinson's Schoole of Musicke (1603). There exists also a manuscript of John Dowland's setting . </P>

Grainger my robin is to the greenwood gone