Page:True tale of Robin Hood (2).pdf/20

20 A treacherous leach this Friar was,

To let him bleed to death,

And Robin was methinks an ass,

To trust him with his breath.

His corpse the prioress of that place,

The next day that he dy'd

Caus'd to be buried in mean fort

Along the highway side,

And over him she cau'ed a stone

To be fixed in the ground.

An Epitaph was set thereon,

Whereon his name was found,

The date of the year and day also,

She made to be set there

That all who by that way did go,

Might see it plain appear,

That such a man as Robin Hood

was buried in that place,

And how he lived in the Green Wood.

and robbed there apace.

It seems that though the clergy he,

had put to meikle woe,

He should not quite forgotten be,

altho' he was their foe.

This woman, though she did him hate,

yet for his memory,

She thought it was a pity that

so great a name should die.

This epitaph, as records tell,

within three hundred years,