2. Judas - I. An Apocryphal Legend

Judas

I. An Apocryphal Legend

He was born to commit the most horrible crimes,
In the night of his conception his mother dreamed
That her son’d be the great’st criminal of all times,
So vicious as no person can be, it would seem.

And the forewarned parents, they soon made up their minds
To put the infant in a tarred basket at once,
And they flattered themselves that their babe would be found
By no one, and to fast drown he had every chance.

And the basket was let to drift on the vast waves,
And the sea didn’t want to let it off a long while,
And it sailed past some green trees and some profound caves
Until it was cast up on the shore of an isle.

And the queen of the isle who was childless but mild
Saw the babe in the basket and made him her son.
She was kind and consid’rate t’wards her little child,
And she thought Judas would be the king when she’d gone.

But her excellent dreams could be never fulfilled,
For she gave birth to a son after many a year,
And with jealousy Judas’ heart began to fill,
And his first awful crime was at that time just near.

He offended his brother continuously,
And their mother, the queen, lost her temper one day:
That he was but a foundling she made Judas see —
And his terrible anger therewithal had way.

Resentful Judas killed his foster-mother’s son,
But afraid of his being soon punished he was:
Without any waiting for the next morning’s sun,
For Jerusalem, great city, he set a course.

Luckily or not, but Pilate paid heed to him,
And to take the youth on he then made up his mind,
And our hero who had been burdened with a sin
Was for the procurator a regular find.

Soon Pontius Pilate’s favor youthful Judas won,
For he always did all he was entrusted with;
As an errand he was really second to none,
But with anger his soul very often would seethe.

For Judas Iscariot always wanted some more
So that he could feel he was a most happy man.
Thus he dreamed of being unto himself a law
And of spending great sums of money with both hands.

There was a large orchard, much rich in everything,
Situated near the palace of Pontius Pilate,
But the latter didn’t know Judas was an offspring
Of the owners of that luxuriant earthly islet.

Many years that orchard has been the property
Of Reuben Simon and Cyborea, his wife,
And it was very studious how they did see
After it in the course of their natural lives.

That loving couple, husband and wife, had begot
Judas proximately twenty five years before.
(And it was our young man’s hard and terrible lot
That he had been born to shed his own parent’s gore.)

When the procurator, looking over the wall,
Began to feel wanting one of those distant fruits,
On Judas thereupon he immediately called,
And ordered him to steal for his superior’s good.

‘Tis clear that Judas could not argue with his master
And penetrated into his father’s estate.
Once again he was destined to suffer disaster,
Still being unaware that long ago he’d strayed.

Suddenly in his sight Reuben Simon appeared;
He caught him red-handed and then cried out loud, “Thief!”
At the funny appearance of him Judas sneered
And contrived to solve that new difficulty brief.

In no time he found by feeling his double-edged blade
And thrust it through the puny body of the man.
In that way another harmless soul met his fate,
And then Judas slipped off, left unpunished again.

But before he escaped, he got one juicy fruit,
For he still remembered what he had been sent for,
And he didn’t, of course, want to be left destitute
After Pilate’s turning him, poor man, out of doors.

And his priceless service by Pilate was esteemed,
Who made up his mind for it to somehow repay.
“Wise to give him a wife and a house,” Pilate deemed,
So Judas in the world began to make his way.

Pilate was determined to make the youth a gift
Of all unfortunate Reuben Simon had had,
Of all Judas’ father to his widow had left,
Of the whole fortune that during his life he’d made.

And ‘twas natural that both of them did not know
(Neither Pilate nor Judas) ‘bout Iscariot’s ban,
‘Bout the fact that Reuben Simon then lying low
Was the nearest relation to our sinful man.

A few days later Judas was married to her
Who had become a widow (the reason was him).
It was his first wife, and Judas struck her with awe,
Making her future very anxious and too dim.

But one day Judas chanced to hear his wife lament
The death of her husband whom she had loved so much,
And while she was lamenting, Cyborea bent
And talked about the things that before she’d not touched.

The poor woman recalled the son that she had lost.
“I named my child Judas — and it means, ‘God be praised,’
But I’m aware I gave birth to him to my cost,
For the boy had been damned before his red-cheeked face

Was shown to the rays of the ever-shining sun,
Before my ears could hear his first long piercing cry,
And before my eyes could see that my newborn son
Had the terrible and strange birthmark on his thigh.

It seemed that an evil spirit had put his sign
On my little boy’s left thigh just near his left knee.
‘Twas so ghastly I did not believe he was mine:
It was terrible, vile, nasty and spidery.”

And then Cyborea burst into bitter tears,
Having, without knowing, just revealed to her son
(During the whole scene, while hiding, he was all ears)
What a horrible crime he, a sinner, had done,

For, though it was too late, Judas then realized
There was a curse upon him: because he was marked
With the devilish sign (he’d already scrutinized
His left thigh) that could not ever bring him good luck.

That was not even all: he was a patricide,
And, on top of that all, he was incestuous;
And he heard a voice calling out from deep inside,
“You shall not be absolved! No, you shan’t, to your death!”

“But it is,” said he then, “not true, I want to sin
Nevermore, and I swear that I am not that foul.
I heard of a man, his name is the Nazarene,
And he is able to save my immortal soul.”

And Judas Iscariot then directed his steps
To the man whom, he knew, many people adored.
He followed the long road, never feeling the lapse
Of the hours, and at last he found whom he’d looked for.

1.01–26.03.97, 16–21.07.98, 20.07.99