" The priest having read the text as chance might
lead him, read the vespers for Sunday;--and you must know he travailed
hard, that the offerings should be worth something to him. Then he fell
to crying, "Barabbas!"--no crier could have cried a ban so loud as he
cried to them; and everyone began to confess his sins aloud (i.e.,
struck up "_mea culpa_") and cried, "Mercy!" The priest, who read on the
sequence of his Psalter, once more began to cry out, saying, "Crucify
him!" So that both men and women prayed God that he would defend them
from torment. But it sorely vexed the clerk, who said to the priest,
"Make an end"; but he answered, "Make no end, friend, till 'unto the
marvellous works'"--referring to a passage in the Psalter. The clerk
then said that a long Passion service boots nothing, and that it is
never a gain to keep the people too long. And as soon as the offerings
of the people were collected he finished the Passion.--"By this tale,"
adds the _raconteur_, "I would show you how--by the faith of Saint
Paul!--it as well befits a fool to talk folly and sottishness as it
becomes a wise man to speak wisely. And he is a fool who believes me
not."[155]--A commentary, this, which recalls the old English saying,
that "it is as great marvel to see a woman weep as to see a goose go
barefoot.
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