Three merry boys, and three merry boys,
And three merry boys are we.
As ever did sing in a hempen string
Under the gallows tree.

The stanza is a gallows-song: condemned men (or would-be rogues) proclaim their “merriness” even as they face execution, the “hempen string” being the hangman’s rope. The jaunty repetition and sing-song meter create an ironic contrast between tone and subject, a common early modern theatrical device that turns death into dark comedy and bravado. Read this way, the lines dramatize a defiant posture toward authority and punishment—performing cheerfulness as a last assertion of agency—while also inviting the audience to feel the uneasy proximity of entertainment and violence in public execution culture.