The one for being a traytoure, Met an untimely death; The other eke for treason Did end her hateful breath. IGNORANCE. Yea, yea, it is no matter, Dispraise them how you wille: But zure they did much goodnesse; Would they were with us stille! We had our holy water, And holy bread likewise, And many holy reliques TRUTH. And all this while they fed you As learned doctors knowe : IGNORANCE. If it be true, good vellowe, And passion of his zon, Ich have for ever done. 120 125 130 135 140 III. THE WANDERING JEW. HE story of the Wandering Jew is of considerable antiquity: it had obtained full credit in this part of the world before the year 1228, as we learn from Mat. Paris. For in that year, it seems, there came an Armenian archbishop into England, to visit the shrines and reliques preserved in our churches; who, being entertained at the monastery of St. Albans, was asked several questions relating to his country, &c. Among the rest a monk, who sat near him, inquired, "if he had ever seen or heard of the famous person named Joseph, that was so much talked of; who was present at our Lord's crucifixion and conversed with him, and who was still alive in confirmation of the Christian faith." The archbishop answered, That the fact was true. And afterwards one of his train, who was well known to a servant of the abbot's, interpreting his master's words, told them in French, "That his lord knew the person they spoke of very well: that he had dined at his table but a little while before he left the East: that he had been Pontius Pilate's porter, by name Cartaphilus; who, when they were dragging Jesus out of the door of the Judgment-hall, struck him with his fist on the back, saying, 'Go faster, Jesus, go faster: why dost thou linger?' Upon which Jesus looked at him with a frown and said, 'I indeed am going, but thou shalt tarry till I come.' Soon after he was converted, and baptized by the name of Joseph. He lives for ever, but at the end of every hundred years falls into an incurable illness, and at length into a fit or ecstacy, out of which when he recovers, he returns to the same state of youth he was in when Jesus suffered, being then about thirty years of age. He remembers all the circumstances of the death and resurrection of Christ, the saints that arose with him, the composing of the apostles' creed, their preaching, and dispersion; and is himself a very grave and holy person." This is the substance of Matthew Paris's account, who was himself a monk of St. Albans, and was living at the time when this Armenian archbishop made the above relation. Since his time several impostors have appeared at intervals under the name and character of the Wandering Jew; whose several histories may be seen in Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. See also the Turkish Spy, vol. ii. book 3, let. 1. The story that is copied in the following ballad is of one, who appeared at Hamburgh in 1547, and pretended he had been a Jewish shoemaker at the time of Christ's crucifixion.-The ballad however seems to be of later date. It is preserved in black-letter in the Pepys collection. [This wondrous myth has found its way into many literatures, and numerous theories have been brought forward to account for its universality; but the only foundation for it appears to be in Christ's words "tarry till I come." Mons. Paul Lacroix, however, suggests that it took its rise in a grand and beautiful allegory in which the Hebrew race were personified under the figure of the Everlasting Wanderer. Professor Child makes the following pertinent remark in his English and Scottish Ballads (vol. viii. p. 78). "It will be noticed that in the second form of the legend, the punishment of perpetual existence, which gives rise to the old names, Judæus non mortalis, Ewiger Jude, is aggravated by a condemnation to incessant change of place, which is indicated by a corresponding name, Wandering Jew, Juif Errant, &c." In the Middle Ages it was supposed by some that Cain was the Wandering Jew, but the Mahometan belief was fixed upon Samiri, who, during the absence of Moses, enticed the people to worship the golden calf. In G. Weil's The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud, 1846 (p. 127), we read, "Moses then summoned Samiri, and would have put him to death instantly, but Allah directed that he should be sent into banishment. Ever since that time he roams like a wild beast throughout the world; everyone shuns him and purifies the ground on which his feet have stood; and he himself, whenever he approaches men, exclaims, "Touch me not." (Quoted in Buckle's Common Place Book. Works, vol. ii. p. 502, 1872.) The legend has been localized in various parts of the world and connected with other myths. According to Mr. Baring Gould, a similar curse to that under which the Wandering Jew is living is supposed to have been inflicted upon the gipsies, on account of their refusal to shelter the Virgin and Child in the flight into Egypt. The last recorded appearance of the Wandering Jew was at Brussels in April, 1774, and the wanderer's name was Isaac Laquedem. The name of the Hamburgh impostor, mentioned above by Percy, was Ahasuerus.] HEN as in faire Jerusalem Our Saviour Christ did live, And for the sins of all the worlde The wicked Jewes with scoffes and scornes Did dailye him molest, That never till he left his life, Our Saviour could not rest. When they had crown'd his head with thornes, And scourg'd him to disgrace, In scornfull sort they led him forthe Unto his dying place; Where thousand thousands in the streete Beheld him passe along, Yet not one gentle heart was there, That pityed this his wrong. Both old and young reviled him, As in the streete he wente, And nought he found but churlish tauntes, His owne deare crosse he bore himselfe, Which made him in the street to fainte, Being weary thus, he sought for rest, Upon a stone; the which a wretch And sayd, Awaye, thou king of Jewes, Pass on; thy execution place Thou seest nowe draweth neare. 5 20 25 And thereupon he thrust him thence; I sure will rest, but thou shalt walke, Left wife and children, house and all, Where after he had seene the bloude Of Jesus Christ thus shed, And to the crosse his bodye nail'd, Without returning backe againe Unto his dwelling place, And wandred up and downe the worlde, A runnagate most base. 35 40 45 No resting could he finde at all, No ease, nor hearts content; 50 No house, nor home, nor biding place: But wandring forth he went From towne to towne in foreigne landes, 55 Of his fore-passed ill. Repenting for the heinous guilt Thus after some fewe ages past But finding it all quite destroyd, Our Saviours wordes, which he had spoke, "I'll rest, sayd hee, but thou shalt walke," 60 65 |