9.
‘It’s for nae honour ye did to me, Brown Robyn,
It’s for nae guid ye did to mee;
But a’ is for your fair confession
You’ve made upon the sea.’
JUDAS
The Text is given from a thirteenth-century MS. in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge (B. 14, 39): it is thus the earliest text of any ballad that we possess. In the MS. it is written in long lines, four (or six, as in 4, 12, and 14) to the stanza.
As the language in which it is written is not easily intelligible, I have added a paraphrase on the opposite pages.
The Story is of great interest, as it adds to the various legends of Judas a ‘swikele’ sister. The treachery of Judas has long been popularly explained (from the Gospel of St. John, xii. 3-6) as follows:— Judas, being accustomed as bearer of the bag to take a tithe of all moneys passing through his hands, considered that he had lost thirty pence on the ointment that might have been sold for three hundred pence, and so took his revenge.