Learn English – “Yes marry have I” usage

expressionshistoryrhymes

I was looking through the original text of a popular nursery rhyme “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book when noticed an expression whose meaning I can’t understand: “Yes, marry, have I”.

What does that expression mean? And speaking in general, does this text from the book issued in 1744 look archaic for modern English native speakers?

Baa, baa, black sheep,<br>Have you any wool?<br>Yes, *marry*, have I,<br>Three bags full;<br>One for my master,<br>And one for my dame,<br>And one for the little boy<br>Who lives in the lane.

Best Answer

In this passage, marry¹ is not used as an oath or as a term of surprise; it is used as an interjection meaning “certainly”. Wiktionary gives definition “(obsolete) indeed!, in truth!; a term of asseveration”, and illustrates with a quotation from Shakespeare’s Henry IV: “I have chequed him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.”