Though it is common in Shakespeare, it is comparatively rare in the Middle English period, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century.

It only occurs once in Chaucer, where it is introduced as being a Northern word; and it absolutely disappears from record in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries.
Bosworth's _Anglo-Saxon Dictionary_ gives no example of its use, and it was long supposed that it would be impossible to trace it in our early records.

Nevertheless, when Dr Sweet printed, for the first time, an edition of King Alfred's translation of Pope Gregory's _Pastoral Care_, an example appeared in which it was employed in the most natural manner, as if it were in everyday use.

At p.

443 of that treatise is the sentence--"Aris and gong to geonre byrg," i.e.Arise and go to yon city.