SAKKAR— JUDAS ISCARIOT 445 



this shield because on earth he had once given a piece of cloth 

 to a naked beggar, and so, even unto him, a deed of charity was 

 not allowed by the Almighty to pass without reward. ^ 



When, in Matthew Arnold's poem, " St. Brandan sails the 

 northern main " and comes across Judas on an iceberg, the 

 fishes occur not, but the cloth appears : 



" And in the street a leper sate 

 Shivering with fever, naked, old ; 

 Sand raked his sores from heel to pate, 

 The hot wind fevered him five-fold. 



He gazed upon me as I passed 

 And murmur'd : Help me or I die ! — 

 To the poor wretch my cloak I cast, 

 Saw him look eased, and hurried by." 



For which act of charity Judas was permitted by the angel 

 every Christmas night to 



" Go hence and cool thyself an hour." 



^ R. Blakey, op. cit., p. 145 [more siio), gives as his authority merely 

 " one of the poetical effusions of the Anglo-Norman Trouveres." 



