Piers Plowman

Passus septimus de visione.

"This were a wicked way, but who so had a guide

That might follow us each foot, till we were there."

Quoth Perkyn the ploughman , "By Saint Peter the apostle,

I have a half acre to eren , by the high way;

Commentaries

Vaughan

4 Individual strips in the open-field system were this size. It would take less than a day for a single worker to plow and plant that much, hardly a 'long lettyng' (7). Of course, the 'half-acre' is a metaphor for all the ordinary, necessary activities of life, as becomes clear in the lines that follow, detailing the duties of the prospective pilgrims.

Had I ered that half acre --so me God help--

Commentaries

Textual

This line (absent the second half-line in K-F) and the next are combined into a single long line in Ra. Kane accepts this as a complete line, without the second half-line added by K-F).

I would wend with you till you were there."

"This were a long letting," quoth a lady in a scleire ;

Commentaries

Vaughan

7. The veil she wears designates her as well-to-do, probably a member of the upper class.

"What should we women work the while ?"

"some shall sew the sacks, for shedding of the wheat;

Commentaries

Vaughan

9ff. The production of cloth and of cloth goods Piers assigns to women, a practical reality as well as one that corresponds to the picture of the ideal of the perfect wife that closes the Old Testament book of Proverbs (31: 10-31).

And you wives that have wool, work it fast ,

Spin it speedily , spare not your fingers ,

But if it be holy day, or else holy evening.

Look forth your linen , and labor theron fast;

The needy and the naked , nymeth yeme how they lie ,

Cast them clothes for cold , for so will Truth ;

For I shall lend them livelihood, but if the land fail ,

As long as I live for the Lord's love of heaven.

And you lovely ladies , with your long fingers ,

That have silk and sendel , sew when time is

Commentaries

Vaughan

19 The use of expensive fabrics, such as silk and cendal (a fine silk), was frequently controlled by statute, sumptuary laws. There were contemporary attempts to limit the wearing of silk to knights and ladies whose income was more than £40 a year (?? Rotuli Parliamentorum III. 66b).

Chasubles for chaplains churches to honor;

And all manner of men, that by the meat live ,

Help them work wightly that win your food ."

"By Christ," quoth a knight then, "thou ken us the best,

Commentaries

Vaughan

23-5 The knight readily accepts Piers's guidance and his expressedwillingness to learn how to plow is taken by Piers as a sign of genuine humility (even if it would be a breach of the conventional duties of the knight's estate). The 'tem' (24) probably has a double meaning: the 'team' that pulls the plow, but also the 'theme' (as a subject of teaching).

Ac on the theme truly taught was I never;

Ac ken me, "quoth the knight, "and I will conne eren ."

"By Saint Paul," quoth Piers, "for thou proffer thee so low,

Commentaries

Vaughan

26ff. Piers reasserts the conservative view of the roles of the various estates: it is the duty of laborers to work and sweat; knights are to hunt down and control wasters and evildoers, human and animal.

I shall swynken and sweat , and sow for us both,

And eke labor for thy love all my life time,

In covenant that thou keep holy church and my self

From wasters and wicked men that would us destroy ;

And go hunt hardilynew to hares and to foxes ,

To boars and to bucks , that break my hedges ,

And fetch thee home falcons the fowls to kill ,

For these come to my croft and crop my wheat."

Courteously the knight conceived these words ;

Commentaries

Vaughan

35-7 The social and legal relations between laborer (Piers) and nobility (knight) are defined in explicitly contractual terms: in response to Piers's 'covenaunt' (29), the knight plights his troth (36) to keep 'this foreward' (37). The agreement is, furthermore, one to which the knight responds '[c]urteisliche' (35).

"By my power, PiersPiers, I plight thee my truth ,

To fulfill this foreward , while I may stand ."

"Yes, and yet a point," quoth Piers, "I pray thee more:

Commentaries

Vaughan

38 Perkyn is clearly in a positionof power here, and insists on additional components of the knight's agreement: namely, that he is committed not to mistreat his tenants and bondsmen, not to accept gifts, to keep his word and not to listen to 'tales.'

Look thou tene no tenant, but Truth will assent ;

And though poor men proffer thee presents or gifts ,

Nyme them not, an aunter thou may them not deserve;

For thou shall yield it again at one year's end,

In a well perilous place that purgatory hattith .

And mysbede not thy bondmen -- the better shall thou speed;

And that thou be true of thy tongue , and tales thou hate,

But it be of wisdom or of wit thy workmen to chasten.

Hold with no harlots , nor hear not their tales ,

And namely at meat such men eschew ;

For it be the devil's disours , I do thee to understand ."

"I assent , by Saint James," said the knight then,

"For to work by thy word , while my life endures ."

"And I shall apparel me," quoth Piers, "in pilgrim's wise,

And wende with you the way, till we find Truth ."

He cast on his clothes , ycloutid and whole,

Commentaries

Vaughan

54ff Piers actually dresses appropriately for working in the field and not in any way distinctively in pilgrim's fashion (52). This, reinforced by his substitution his 'hoper' for a pilrgrim's 'scrippe' (56), gives us the sense that what he is doing is, metaphorically at least, his form of pilgrimage. This is consistent with the virtual pilgrimage to Truth that has been been repeatedly substituted for actual pilgrimages to distant shrines.

His cokeris and his cuffs , for cold of his nails ,

And hung his hopper at his hals , in stead of a scrip --

"A bushel of bread corn bring me there in ,

Commentaries

Vaughan

57 A bushel of seed would be about the ordinary amount to sow a half-acre.

For I will sow it my self , and siththe will I wende;

And who so helps me to eren , or any thing to swynke,

Shall have, by our Lord , the more hire in harvest ,

And make him merry with the corn, who so it begrudges .

And all kind crafty men that ken live in truth ,

I shall find them food , that faithfully live ,

Save Jack the juggler , and Jonete of the stews ,

Commentaries

Vaughan

64ff. Such low-life 'entertainers' are not included among those whose lives are faithful. Their categorical exclusion from accepted society is reinforced by firm biblical authority: Psalm 69 [68]: 28. (See also, Exodus 32:32-33; Revelation 3:5.) The ideal that the church would not accept offerings from such people, of course, may not have been followed in practice.

And Robin the ribalder for his rusty words .

Truth told me once , and bade me tell it farther ,

Deleantur de libro, I should not deal with them;

Commentaries

Fowler

67-69. Deleantur de libro [viventium]... et cum iustis non scribantur. "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." Ps. 69:28.

For holy church is held of them no tithe to ask :

Et cum iustis non scribantur.

They been escaped good adventure -- now God them amend."

Commentaries

Vaughan

Fowler

70 Their 'escape' and 'good luck' are meant ironically, as the prayer for their amendment makes clear.

70-73. These four lines, containing the names of the wife and children of Piers were thought by Manly (CHEL, II, 37) to be a scribal interpolation, interrupting as they do Piers' remarks about his preparations for the pilgrimage. The fact that the lines are retained in the B and C revisions would then provide evidence in favor of the theory of multiple authorship.

Dame Work -when-time-is Piers's wife hatte;

Commentaries

Vaughan

Textual

71-4 The listing of Piers's allegorical family here anticipates their being mentioned in his 'bequest' which follows. Their names articulate the kind of straightforward practical and proverbial wisdom that Piers himself instructs others to follow. His wife's name may allude to ??? (Jesus's words in ???).

The text beginning at this line (and ending 145? lines later at line 21#) is displaced in Ra (and the closely related MSS U and E), and appears inserted into Passus 1, following line 179? The easiest explanation is that a bifolium, from the center of the quire containing this part of Passus VII, fell out and was inserted incorrectly into the middle of the earlier one containing Passus I. If so, then we can infer that each of the four pages in the bifolium contained 34 lines, which are slightly more than appear in Ra.

His daughter hattith Do-right -so-or-thy-dame-shall -thee-beat;

His son hattith suffer -thy -sovereigns -to-have -their-will-

And-deem -them -not-for-if-thou-do-thou -shall -it -dear -buy .

"Let God worth with all , for so his word teaches ;

Commentaries

Vaughan

75 The sense is: Leave everything to God. (It is possible that this could be a continuation of the son's long name: that is Kane's view, and that of editors of B.)

For now I am old and hoar , and have of my own ,

Commentaries

Vaughan

76 have of myn owene: CHECK idiom.

To penance and to pilgrimage I will pass with these others.

For-thi I will , ere I wend, do write my bequest .

"In dei nomine, amen: I make it my self .

Commentaries

Vaughan

79ff. It is usual to make a will before one undertakes a pilgrimage, and the form of this will corresponds closely to contemporary examples (which tend to be written in English, with some Latin [or French] phrases).

He shall have my soul that best has deserved ,

And defend it from the fiend, for so I believe ,

Till I come to his accounts, as my creed me teaches ,

To have release and remission on that rental I leave.

The church shall have my carrion , and keep my bones ;

Commentaries

Vaughan

84ff. These lines suggest that the parish (in the person of the pastor: 'he') is to be responsible for the burial of Piers's body, in return for his faithful tithes to support it/him. In addition, the church is bound to remember Piers's soul in its masses and prayers for the dead.

For of my corn and my cattle he craved the tithe .

I paid him prestly , for peril of my soul;

He is held , I hope, to have new me in mind,

And menge me in his memory among all Christians .

My wife shall have of that I won with truth , and no more ,

And deal among my friends and my dear children ;

For though I die today my debts be quit ;

I bore home that I borrowed ere I to bed yede.

And with the residue and the remnant -- by the rood of Chester --

I will worship there with Truth in my life,

Commentaries

Vaughan

94 The line literally repeats the promise of Sloth: V.233.

And be his pilgrim at the plough , for poor men's sake.

Commentaries

Vaughan

95-7 The substitution of plowing for pilgrimaging is continued here. Like the 'hoper' for the 'scrippe' (56), his plow replaces his pikestaff.

My plough-pote shall be my pike staff, and pick at the roots ,

And help my colter to carve and close the furrows ."

Now is Piers and the pilgrims to the plough fared ;

100

To eren this half acre help him many.

Diggers and delvers dig up the balks ;

Commentaries

Vaughan

100 balkis: unplowed strips of land defined the borders between individual fields in the open-field system, but the reference to diggers suggests they are here referring to pieces of the plowed field not turned over by the plow, or large sods, which would be broken up by hand. Presumably, controlling a four-oxen team and a heavy plow would not be so precise as to ensure that every bit of the soil was broken up and turned over.

There with was Piers paid , and praised praised them yerne.

Other workmen there were that wrought ful fast;

Each man in his manner made him to do;

105

And some , to please Piers, picked up the weeds .

At high prime Peris let the plough stand,

Commentaries

Vaughan

105 The plowing of the half-acre is completed by mid-morning, at which point the work that remains involves hand implements, like shovels and spades. Peirs is concerned to identify the good workers at this more demanding labor.

To oversee them him self who so best wrought ;

He should be hired there after , when harvest time came.

Then sat some , and sang at the ale,

110

And helped eren the half acre with "Hey, trolly-lolly !"

Commentaries

Vaughan

109 'Hey trolly-lolly' is presumably a refrain from another popular song, like the one referred to in Pr. 103, which other 'dikeris and delveris' (Pr. 102; like those a few lines above) prefer to devote themselves to instead of doing their work.

"Now by the prince of paradise ," quoth Piers then in wrath ,

Commentaries

Vaughan

110 Piers expresses righteous anger here, as he will later (VIII.99) when he tears the pardon. Such anger may be the poet's justification for omitting Wrath from his cast of Deadly Sins in the previous parade of Vices. Bennett notes that 'his words here are precisely in the spirit of the Commons' petition in 1376 that vagrant beggars should be imprisoned unless they promised to return home to work and that it should be forbidden to give alms to persons able to labour' (p. 205: note to B VI.119). The principle is, obviously, not original to the 1376 petition.

"But you rise the rather and rape you to work,

Shall no grain that here grows gladden you at need,

And though you die for dole , the devil have that recks !"

115

Than were faitours afraid, and feigned them blind;

Some laid their legs a-lery , as such losellis con ,

Commentaries

Bennett

Vaughan

115 (= B VI.124) aliri: for vv. ll. and possible etymologies v . E. J. Dobson, English and Gmc. Studies, 1 (1947-8), 56, and E. Colledge, M Æ, 27 (1958), 111; neither accounts satsifactorily for the final -i ; it may be a 'cant' word used by 'loseles' themselves, possibly preserved in the counting rhym 'one two three, aleery' (followed by a hop): cf Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959), pp. 114-15. They pretend (pace Sk) to be maimed, by tying or twisting the calf against the back of the thigh, so that it appears to be cut off; cf. C. Brett, MLR, 22 (1927), 261, and the detail from P. Brueghel's Fight between Carnival and Lent reproduced by Colledge. William of Nassyngton criticizes 'faytoures' for similar reasons: <blockquote>For lyþer wyles can þei finde To make þaim seme crokede and blynde Or seke or mysays to mennes syght. So cann þai þair lymes dyght For men suld þaim mysays deme. </blockquote> A variant posture is shown in a misericord at Christchurch, Hants.

115 a-lery: the exact nature of the deception here is not clear. Either the leg is tied up so that it appears to have been cut off, or the pretence is that the leg is unable to bear weight: a 'trick knee' or the like.

And plained them to Piers with such piteous words:

"We have no limbs to labor with, Lord graced be you!

Ac we pray for you no Piers , and for your plough both,

120

That God of his grace your grain multiply ,

And yield you of your alms that you give give us here.

For we may neither swynke no sweat , such sickness us ails ."

" If it be sooth, " quoth Piers , "that you say , I shall it soon espy .

You be wasters , I wot well, and Truth wot the sooth;

125

And I am his holde hyne, and ought him to warn

Which wasters in this world his workmen destroy .

You eat that they should eat that eren for us all;

Ac Truth shall teach you his team for to drive,

Both to set and to sow , and save his tilth,

130

Catch geese from his corn, keep his beasts,

Or you shall eat barley bread, and of the brook drink.

But he be blind or broken-shanked , or bedridden lie ,

They shall eat as good as I, so me God help,

Till God of his grace gar them to arise .

135

Anchorites and hermits that holde them in their cells

Shall have of my alms, all the while I live ,

Enough each day at noon, ac no more ere morrow ,

Lest his flesh and the fiend fouled his soul;

Once at noon is enough that no work uses ;

140

He abides well the better that bums not too often ."

Then began Waster arise , and would have fought;

Commentaries

Vaughan

140 This personification of parasitic members of society (mentioned already: Pr. 22) recalls the alliterative ME poem Wynnere and Wastoure<.i> (early 1350s).

To Piers the ploughman he proffered his glove;

Commentaries

Vaughan

141 Offering one's glove is a way of issuing a challenge; if opponent takes the glove, he accepts the challenge.

A Breton , a braggart, boasted him also,

And bade him go piss with his plough -- piled shrew !

145

" Wilt thou , won't thou , we will have oure will

Commentaries

Textual

Ra continues this line with 'of thy flour,' which in K-F and Kane is assigned to the beginning of the following line.

Of thy flour and of thy flesh , fetch when us likes ,

And make us merry there with , malgre thy cheeks !"

Then Piers the ploughman plained hym to the knight ,

To keep him, as covenant was, from cursed shrews ,

150

From wasters that wait winners to shende .

Courteously the knight then, as his kind would,

Commentaries

Vaughan

150ff. The courtesy of the knight is emulated in the 'polite' language of these lines: the knight is restrained in warning and advising. The courteous approach does not achieve much, and Piers is forced to invoke stronger measures.

Warned Waster , and wisside him better --

" Or thou shall buy by the law, by the order that I bear ."

"I was not wont to work ," quoth Waster , "now will I not begin ."

155

And let light of the law, and less of the knight ,

And counted Piers at a pea, and his plough both,

And menaced him and his men, when they next met .

"Now, by the peril of my soul," quoth Piers , "I shall appeire you all!"

And whooped after Hunger , that heard him at the first :

Commentaries

Vaughan

158 Piers steps out of his human, social role here in invoking Hunger to punish the wasters, and becomes an almost divine force in league with nature to effect punishment for injustice. The fact that Hunger hears (and responds) immediately ('at the ferste') indicates that this may not be an extraordinary condition of famine, but something resulting from the reduced availability of food in the early summer period, between spring plowing (and planting) and the beginning of harvest: when the previous year's supplies are running out and the new crops is not yet ready to eat.

160

"Awreke me on these wasters ," quoth Piers , "that this world shendith !"

Hunger in haste then hente Waster by the mawe,

And wrung him so by the womb that both his eyes watered,

And buffeted the Breton about the cheeks ,

That he looked like a lantern all his life after .

165

He beat them so both, he burst near their maws ;

Not had Piers with a pease-loaf prayed him beleve ,

Commentaries

Vaughan

165 Loaves of bread made from dried peas were a staple food for the poor even long after the Middle Ages, and certainly second rate by comparison with the barley bread that was available earlier (WHERE?).

And with a beans' batch yede them between ,

And hit Hunger there with amid his lips --

And bled into the bodyward a bowl full of gruel --

170

Not had the physician first defended him water

To abate the barley bread and the beans ground,

Commentaries

Vaughan

170 Check MED: Ra has 'bate,' which seems related to 'batte' (166) and may mean that drinking water would expand and 'gum up' the barley bread and ground beans.

They had been dead by this day, and dolven all warm.

Faitours for fear then flew into barns ,

And flapped on with flails , from morrow till eve,

175

That Hunger was not hardy on them for to look

Commentaries

Vaughan

174ff It seems to make more sense of the passage to put a period at the end of 174, and (as Pearsall does in C), and make 175 be the inspiration for the hermits in 176.

For a pottle of peas that Piers had made .

A heap of hermits henten them spades

And delved dirt and dung to ditte out Hunger.

Blind and bedridden were botnid a thousand

180

That lay for blind and for broken-legged by the high way.

Hunger them healed with a hot cake,

And lame men's limbs were lithid that time,

And become knaves to keep Piers's beasts,

And prayed pour charity with Piers for to dwell,

185

All for covetous of his corn, to catch away Hunger .

And Piers was proud therof, and put them in into office ,

And gave them meat and money as they might deserve .

Then had Piers pity , and prayed Hunger to wende

Home into his own erd , and hold him there ever --

190

"And yet I pray thee," quoth Piers , "ere thou pass farther ,

Of beggars and bidderis what is best to do?

Commentaries

Vaughan

190ff The proper response to beggars is a recurrent concern in this poem: Prol. 40ff., VIII.67ff. See Bennett's notes to 201 and 204 below.

For I wot well, be thou went, they will work full illill;

Mischief it makes , they be so meek now ,

And for default of food thus fast they work ;

195

And it be my bloody brethern , for God bought us all.

Truth taught me once to love them each one ,

And help them of all things, after that them needed .

Now would I wit if thou wistest what were the best,

And how I might master them, and make them to work ."

200

"Hear now," quoth Hunger , "and hold it for a wisdom :

Bold beggars and big that may their meat beswynken ,

With hound's bread and horse bread hold up their hearts ,

Commentaries

Bennett

201 (= B VI.216) Medieval teaching on mendicancy was much influence by St. Augustine's De opere monachorum, on which Guillaume de St. Amour, and hence Jean de Meun ( v . Roman de la Rose, 11425-88) drew liberally. But L's knowledge of this work has not been proved. At least one medieval test (cit. B. Tierney, The Medieval Poor Law (1959), p. 58) laid down that relief should not be given to able-bodied beggars. H. Moe, PMLA, 75 (1959), 40, attempts to prove that the present passage influenced the framers of the Elizabethan Poor Law. Tierney remarks that what was really needed after the Black Death was 'a kind of scholastic critique of employability in able-bodied vagrants'.

And bane them with beans , for bollnyng of their wombs ;

And if the grooms grouch, bid them go swynke,

Commentaries

Vaughan

203 NOTE needed: A troublesome line, textually and tonally.

205

And he shall sup sweeter when he it has deserved .

Commentaries

Bennett

204 (= B VI.220ff.) (Cf. vii. 78 ff. and xiii. 142.) The sense and wording of this passage differ in A and C: v . N. Coghill, RES, 6 (1932), 303, and M. Day, ibid., 445. Each perhaps represents a different gloss of the difficult text cited at 230 [=A VII.214]; but they agree in accepting the usual medieval view that relief of the needy was a primary obligation on those with the means to do so; to withhold alms when there is evident and urgent necessity is mortal sin--a doctrine piercingly expressed in The Lykewake Dirge: cf. Tawney, p. 233, Dunning, pp. 33., 56, and nn., and B. Tierney, op. cit., passim. Giving from one's superfluities was a mere act of justive owed to the poor, but to give from one's necessities was an act of mercy. But all giving had to be prompted by a right attitude to God and one's neighbour; cf. Traditio, 2 (1944), 97. The Disticha 86. c 9 ( v . Tierney) distinguishes between the deserving and undeserving poor; old and sick, and those fallen from riches into want (especially if through no fault of their own) are to be helped first. Alms, according to one modification of this view, should be denied when known to be harmful, but day-to-day cases were not to be examined minutely. Such was the doctrine. That it did not always issue in counsel such as Piers's may be inferred from a couplet in Handlyng Synne: 'þyne even cristyn þow awyst to lene / 3if þou mayst spare hit, þat I mene' (2401-2).

And if thou find any frek that fortune has apeirid

With fire or with false men, find such to know ;

Commentaries

Vaughan

206 Can't the second half-line be taken as an inserted instruction: '--Seek to learn about them; Look for them--'? Delete the semicolon so that the instruction to comfort them is the main clause of the combined lines.

Comfort them with thy cattle, for Christ's love of heaven;

Love them and lene them, and so the law of kind will .

210

And all manner of men, that thou might espy ,

Commentaries

Textual

In Ra, this and the following seven lines, which embrace the point at which the misplaced lines of Passus VII end in Passus I, are irregular in length and alliteration.

That needy be or naked , and nought have to spend,

With meat or with money let them be the better, .

Or with work or with word, while thou are here.

Commentaries

Textual

This line is missing from Ra

Make thee friends there with , and so Matthew us teaches :

Commentaries

Vaughan

213 The alliterating 'Matheu' is regular in the A MSS, but the Latin text that follows is from Luke. This is not the only instance of misattribution in the poem: the same mistake occurs below, 224-5.

215

Facite vobis amicos de mammona iniquitatis ."

Commentaries

Fowler

214 (= Knott-Fowler 212). Facite vobis amicos de mammona iniquitatis. "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." (Luke 16:9). The author frequently errs on the source of his quotations. Cf. line 220 below.

"I would not grieve God , " quoth Piers , "for all the gold on ground ;

Might I sinless do as thou say ?" said Piers then.

"Yes, I behote thee ," quoth Hunger , "or else the bible lies ;

Commentaries

Fowler

217 Gen. 3:19.

Go to Genesis the giant, engenderer of us all:

Commentaries

Vaughan

218 If it is not merely a handy and striking alliteration, the 'geaunt' may refer to the size of the book of Genesis: it is the longest book of the Pentateuch and one of the longest books in the entire Bible. It is also, of course, the book that provides the account of human origins (the 'engendrour of us alle').

220

'In sudore and swynke thou shall thy meattill,

Commentaries

Fowler

217-18. Gen. 3:19.

And labor for thy livelihood,' and so our Lord highte .

And Sapientia says the same -- I saw it in the bible :

Commentaries

Vaughan

221 'Sapience' refers to the author (sometimes called 'Solomon') of Proverbs and other Old Testament books of 'wisdom' literature, often titled the 'Writings,' to distinguish them from the 'Law' (Torah or Pentateuch) and the 'Prophets.'

' Piger propter frigus no field would till;

Commentaries

Fowler

222-23 (= Knott-Fowler 220-21). Piger propter frigus, etc. "The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing." Prov. 20:4. Not the book of Wisdom, as the text says.

He shall go beg and bid , and no man better his hunger .'

225

Matthew with the man's face mouths these words :

Commentaries

Vaughan

Fowler

224 The four gospel writers are traditionally associated with the four beasts of Revelation 4:6-8, derived from the four-headed beasts drawing Yahweh's chariot in Ezekiel 1:4-12. In medieval iconography, Matthew is associated with the man, Mark with the lion, Luke with the bull, and John with the eagle. The 'servus nequam' is wording from Luke 19:22 from his version of the parable of the talents. In Matthew, the equivalent passage (25:26), in which the master condemns the fearful recipient of the one talent, he addresses him as 'XXXX.' Similarly, the unusual word 'nam' is the term used in Luke: mnam</I> (19:20 ???); the term is XXX in Matthew's account.

224 (= Knott-Fowler 222). Matheu with the manis face. Skeat, in his note on this line, says: "An allusion to the common representation of the evangelists, which likens Matthew to a man, Mark to a lion, Luke to a bull, and John to an eagle ." Cf. Ezek. 1:10 and Rev. 4:7. The reference here is to the parable of the talents, Matt. 25:14 ff., and Luke 19:12 ff.

That servus nequamhad a mnam , and for he wouldn't it use ,

He had malgre of his master ever more after ;

And benom him his mnam , for he wouldn't work ,

Commentaries

Vaughan

Bennett

227 This unusual application of the parable is, as Bennett noted (p. 210, note to B VI.241), not unprecedented.

227 (=B VI.241). nam (gl. besaunt ih L), Lat. mnam (acc.) < Gk. [mna]. Both mna[m] and serv[e] nequam occur in the version of the parable of the talents in Luc. 19: 16 ff. (the Wiclifite version of which uses besaunt), whereas Matt. 25 has in fact talentum and serve male et piger; but the conjunction of the reference to Matthew with th ephrase from Prov. 20 suggests that it was Matthew's version that the poet originally had in mind. His interpretation of the parable, which eliminates any reference to the failure of the steward to put out his talent at interest, is found also in the 12th-c. Bestiaire<.i> of Guillaume le Clerc: 'the other has no will to work, but all his life idly waits' (3846). Implicit approval of usury would offer difficulties for a medieval exegete, and in particular for a writer who has condemned Meed. Wynnere and Wastour, 286, perhaps refers to the same parable.

And gave it him in haste that had ten there before ;

230

And sithen he said , that his servants it heard ,

'He that has shall have, to help there need is,

Commentaries

Vaughan

230-32 This translation of the moral of the parable, closest perhaps to that in Luke (cf. 19: 26), gives particular point to the 'use' of these talents 'to helpe' where there is need. On the other hand, the punishment of those who 'nolde werche' is the denial of equivalent 'helpe.'

And he that nought has shall nought have , nor no man him help;

And that he weens well to have, I will it be him bereaved .'

Kind wit would that each wight wrought

235

Or with teaching or tilling , or travailing of hands ,

Actif life or contemplative; Christ would it also.

Commentaries

Vaughan

Textual

235 The contrast between the Active Life and the Contemplative Life is a common one. The terms have only general application to the three occupations in 234: teaching may qualify as an activity of the contemplative life; tilling and manual labor are works of the active life. However, it is clear from monastic rules, e.g., the Rule of St. Benedict, that those engaged in the contemplative life of a monastery were also required to labor in the fields.

Ra uniquely omits this this line.

The Psalter says , in the psalm of Beati omnes,

Commentaries

Fowler

234. the salme of Beati omnes, i. e., the psalm beginning "Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways." The quotation is from the second verse of this psalm (128): "For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands."

Labores manuum. tuarumXmt quia manducabis, etc.

He that gets his food here with travail of his hands --

240

God gives them his blessing that their livelihood here so wins ."

" Yet I pray thee," quoth Piers , "pour charity, if thou con

Commentaries

Vaughan

240ff Piers now seeks a solution to the problem of sickness, which also prevents some from working.

Any leaf of leechcraft, learn it me, my dear.

For some of my servants be sick other while ,

Of all the week they work nought , so their womb aches ."

245

"I wot well," quoth Hunger, "what sickness them ails :

Commentaries

Vaughan

244ff Hunger focuses on overindulgence in food and drink (i.e., Gluttony) as a first cause of illness. It may be a little surprising to modern readers that Hunger refers to himself in the third person (248); it clearly wasn't to the scribes of this poem. As earlier, in the confession of the Deadly Sins (V.57), excess in food and drink is associated here with lechery.

They have mangid over much , that makes them groan often.

Ac I hote thee," quoth Hunger, "as thou thine heal wills ,

That thou drink no day ere thou dine somewhat ;

Eat nought , I hote thee, ere Hunger thee take,

Commentaries

Textual

The composition of this and the following two lines in Ra differs in line-division from that in K-F and Kane.

250

And send thee of his sauce, to savor thy lips ; ,

And keep some till supper time, and sit nought too long; :

Arise up ere Appetite have eaten his fill.

Commentaries

Textual

This line, in K-F and Kane, is incorporated into the preceding line in Ra.

Let not Sir Surfeit sit at your board;

Leve him nought , for he is a lecher , and lecherous of tongue,

255

And after many manner meats his maw is alongid .

And if thou diet thee thus, I dar lay my ears ,

That Physic shall his furred hood for his food sell,

And ek his cloak of Calabria , and the knobs of gold ,

Commentaries

Vaughan

257 Physicians were often paid with clothing rather than (or in addition to) money.

And be fain, by my faith , his physic to let ,

260

And learn to labor with land, lest livelihood him fail .

There be more liars than leeches -- Lord them amend!

Commentaries

Vaughan

260-61 In addition to focusing on their love of fine clothes, the long tradition of satiric criticism of doctors repeatedly castigates them for an inability to tell the truth and for a tendency to kill their patients with their 'cures.'

they do men die through their drinks , ere destiny it would."

"By Saint Paul," quoth Piers , "these be profitable words ;

This is a lovely lesson; Lord it thee foryelde!

265

Wend now when thy will is, that well be thou ever."

"I behote thee ," quoth Hunger, "hence won't I wend

Commentaries

Vaughan

265-66 Hunger's response to Piers's second invitation (cf. 187-88) that he leave, makes clear that he is not altogether in Piers's control, as seemed to be the case 'at th ferste' (158) when he called for his assistance.

Ere I have dined by this day, and drunk both."

"I have no penny," quoth Piers , "pullets to buybuy,

Neither geese nor gris ; but two twain green cheeses ,

270

A few curds and cream, and one haver cake,

A loaf of beans and bran baked for my children;

And yet I say by my soul, I have no salt bacon ,

Nor no cockney , by Christ, collops to make .

Ac I have parsley and poret, and many cole plants ,

275

And eke a cow and a calf, and a cart mare

To draw afield my dung , while the drought lasts .

By this livelihood I must live till Lammas time;

By that I hope for to have harvest in my croft;

And then may I dighte thy dinner as thee dear likes ."

280

All the poor people peasecods fetched,

Commentaries

Vaughan

279ff The foodstuffs offered Hunger are those available in early summer. The baked apples are probably those stored from the previous autumn, since few would be ripe enough to eat (even after baking) before August.

Beans and baked apples they brought in their laps,

Chibollis and chervils , and ripe cherries many,

And proffered Piers this present, to please with Hunger .

Hunger ate these in haste, and asked after more.

285

Then these folk for fear fetched him many

Green porettis and peas , to poison him they would .

Commentaries

Vaughan

VaughanTextual

285 As Kane noted (in rejecting the widely attested poyson here), the root meaning of the word is 'medicinal draught'; even in the absence (from the MED) of any earlier use of the form as a verb--to administer a potion--that is a more acceptable sense here. It is also possible that unripe leeks and peas could be considered 'poisionous.'

285 Kane changes the widely attested poysen to peysen ('to content, satisfy'); in doing so, he rejects the easier plese(n) ofMS V (and L), presumably (it's not mentioned in his note) to avoid the repetition of 'plese' from 279.

By that it nighed near harvest, that new corn came to chepyng ;

Then was folk fain, and fed Hunger with the best,

With good ale and gluttony, and gart him to sleep.

290

And then would Waster not work , but wandered about,

Nor no beggar eat bread that beans in came ,

But coket or clermatyn , or of clean wheat;

Nor no halfpenny ale in no wise drink,

But of the best and the brownest that brewsters sell .

295

Laborers that have no land to live on but their hands,

Deign not to dine aday night -old worts .

May no penny-ale them pay, nor no piece of bacon ,

But if it be fresh flesh , or fish fried ,

And chaud and plus chaud , for chilling of their maw.

300

But if he be highly hired , else will he chide ,

That he was workman wrought warie the time,

Commentaries

Vaughan

300ff. The Black Death of 1348-49 and other outbreaks of plague during the middle of the fourteenth century had marked effect on the availability and stability of laborers, in rural agriculture particularly. In 1351 the King's Council issued a Statute of Laborers to control the wages and movement of workers. This and similar statutes were enforced (somewhat intermittently) during subsequent decades (virtually for the next century). These rules were the cause of much unrest in this period and accounted for at least some of the dissatisfaction which led to the Rising of 1381 (the so-called Peasants' Revolt).

And then curse the king, and all his council after,

Such laws lawes to look laborers to chasten.

Ac while Hunger was their master would there none chide

305

Nor strive against the statute, so sternly he looked .

Commentaries

Fowler

301. statute. References in this passage to high wages and to laws designed to chasten laborers reflect economic conditions which developed in the wake of the pestilence. The shortage of farm hands after the epidemic of 1348-49 enabled workers to demand higher wages; a Statute of Labourers was provided by Edward III, freezing wages at the level prevailing two years before the beginning of the pestilence. The subsequent re-enactments of the statute indicate the difficulty encountered in enforcing it.

I warn you , workmen, win while you may;

For Hunger hitherward hastens him fast.

He shall awake through water wasters to chasten;

Commentaries

Vaughan

Bennett

307-10 The prophecy of flood and famine is associated with the influence of Saturn (310), the most inauspicious of the planets, and prone to cause floods, especially when it is in the constellation Aquarius.

307 (= B VI. 324ff.) Like iii. 323 ff., this riddling prophecy ( pace Sk) must be taken seriously. According to Anima at xv. 350 ff. to have 'no bilieue on the lifte' is a sign of a perverse generation; and at xix. 230 ff. 'astronomers' are endowed by the Holy Ghost (perhaps because, like the 'prophecyings' there mentioned, wonders in heaven were associated with the speaking with tongues which signalized the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost: cf. Actus Apost. 2: 4, 18-19). The reference to Saturn (327) is straightforward enough. Saturn is the most malignant planet 'ennemye to all thinges that growe and bere life of nature' (Compost of Ptolemæus): hence he brings famine, murrain, and pestilence, cf. CT , A 2469, PPl, C ix. 350, and Neckam, De Naturis Rerum, i. vii (p. 40). Neckam, ibid., says: 'Saturnus igitur existente in Aquario, inundationes fiunt aquarum' (cf. 326). Saturn also rules over 'viscous and congealed diseases' such as those described in xx. 80 ff. (where Kind Conscience does in fact fulfil the present prophecy in an apocalyptic context). In all these respects Saturn is associated with winter: cf. Douglas, Eneydos, Prol. vii. 29 ff. Chaucer associates the planet not only with pestilence and 'maladyes olde' but also with 'cherles rebellyng' (? the Peasants' Revolt; but v. MLN, 69 (1954), 393). For a representation of such a revolt taking place under the sign of Saturn (1524) v. Cristianisme e Ragion di Stato, Atti del II Congresso Internatzionale di Stui Umanistici, a cura di Enrico Castelli, 1952 (pl. 2). Lines 328-9 are peculiar to B. The phenomena of 328 are presumably those of (i) an eclipse (a total eclipse occurred in 1377) and (3) curious shapes in the sky such as have been reported in later times ( v . e.g., The Listener, 18 June 1953). They would be given significance because of their likeness to the prognostication of Matt. 24: 29-30. there is no reason to doubt the reading of 328b (? a covert allusion to certain religious--or to apparitions); but we may note that Dunbar associates 'two monis sene up in the lift' with the birth of Antichrist ('Lucina Shining', 49). In The Golden Legend three suns appear in the east before the birth of Christ (ed. Ellis, i. 26). 329 is to be interpreted primarily (though perhaps not solely) as a reference to the continuing play of Meed (who is a 'maid' in ii and iii and has 'þe maistrie' in iv. 25); but in this apocalyptic context Meed herself might be identified with the Scarlet Woman of Apoc. 17. The construction of 329b is obscure. Donaldson constues [sic] multiplied (LMRF; v. 1. multiplie) as a pp. form modifying all the preceding conditions of the prophecy. As maistrie sometimes has the technical sense of 'the secret of the transmutation of metals inot god' (a sense not inapposite for the operations of Lady Meed) it is possible that multiplie is likewise used with an alchemical reference, as the term for 'increasing' the original 'starter' metal: cf. CT, T 848 ff.: 'For bothe two, by my savacioun, / Concluden in multiplacioun . . .'. C increases the obscurity by adding: 'Thre shupes and a shaft [v.1.schaefe] with an vm. folwying / Shal brynge bane and bataile on bothe half the mone' (351-2); cf. Dunbar, loc. cit., where the 'feigned friar' flies above the moon and, 'under Saturnis fierie regioun', meets Simon Magus, Mahoun, and Merlin (ther first and last being associated with fallacious arts, including alchemy). Bradley (MLR, 5 (1910), 342) interpreted 'three ships and a shaft with vm' as a numerical rebus: xxx (30); 50 ['shaft'] = l]; 8 [= viii(vm), viz. [13]88; if we read schaefe, the numerical equivalent would presumably be [13]62 (cf. iii. 324 n.)--though 'shaft' may again allude to Saturn; in Henryson's Testament of Cresseid Saturn has 'ane flasche [sheaf] of felloun flanis [arrows, shafts] / Fedderit with Ice and heidit with hailstanis' (167-8). No convincing reason for an allusion to the year 1388 (or 1362) suggests itself, and C was probably written after that date. Such prophecies are a feature of the later 14th c. A simple example, which L may have been following, is Wynnere and Wastoure 290 ff.: <blockquote>... first the faylynge of fode and then the fire after To brenne the alle at a birre for thy bale dedis: The more colde is to come, als me a clerke tolde </blockquote> where Gollancz saw an allusion to the hard winter of 1352-3 as well as to the fames of Apoc. 18: 8. a more complex Scots prophecy in Camb. Univ. MS. Kk. 1. 5 (IV), f. 326 involves 'tre CCC in Aprille', 'an 1 as the lyne askis, Tuis X and ane R'. The passage also shows the influence of contemporary prophecies about the coming of Antichrist, described by Bloomfield (pp. 91-4, 212). (Bennett, pp. 214-15)

Ere five years be fulfilled , such famine shall arise,

310

Through floods and through foul weather , fruits shall fail;

And so says Saturn , and sent you to warn.

Commentaries

Fowler

307. Satourne . In medieval astrology the influence of Saturn is always unfavorable, if not malignant. Compare his role in Chaucer's Knight's Tale , especially 2453 ff.

Passus 7