Now is the month of maying is one of the most famous of the English Ballett

Ballet (music)

Ballet as a music form progressed from simply a complement to dance, to a concrete compositional form that often had as much value as the dance that went along with it. The dance form, originating in France during the 17th century, began as a theatrical dance. It was not until the 19th century that...

s, by Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at St Paul's Cathedral...

 published in 1595. It is based on a text used by Orazio Vecchi

Orazio Vecchi

Orazio Vecchi was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance. He is most famous for his madrigal comedies, particularly L'Amfiparnaso.- Life :...

 in 1590.

The song delights in bawdy double-entendre. It is apparently about spring dancing, but this is a metaphor for sex. For example, a "barley-break" would have suggested outdoor sexual activity (rather like we might say a "roll in the hay"). The use of such imagery and puns increased during the Renaissance.