Like a lord writing letters who has plenty of parchment
But lacking a pen, though his pen-work is perfect,
40 Is unable to deliver his lordly letters.
So it seems to have been, as the Bible says,
That God needed to work with his wits as well,
And molded man using all of his might
To live a life that would last for ever
45 By bestowing a spirit from the sanctity of heaven.
Thus his grace was so great that he granted to man
Everlasting life, to his lineage as well,
And man and his soul amount to as much
As the fortress called Flesh that was fashioned by Nature
50 And was made by the majesty of God Almighty,
The work of his word and the work of his wits.
“Both Mind and the senses are sealed inside
For love of the lady who is known as Life
And who roams the body, all its recondite reaches,
55 Though the heart is her home and her harbor of rest,6
While Mind in the head, managing the heart,
Approves the plans and the purposes of Life.
“Of God’s gifts the greatest after grace is the mind,
And misery afflicts those who misuse their minds,
60 Such as gobbling gluttons whose God is their belly.7
They are servants of Satan, who shall seize their souls,
For sinners have souls that resemble him,8
While the good have souls like the God of grace:
He that abideth in charity, abideth in God.9
Gluttony negates redemption by God,
65 Who forsakes those conceived in his shape if they’re drunk:
Amen I say to you, I know you not, and
I let them go according to the desires of their heart.10
But folk merely foolish and fatherless children,
And madmen and maidens who are meant to be helped,
And others who are mindless and have to be minded,
And widows who want the wherewithal for food,
70 Are fostered and fed by the Church, as is fair.11
I might say much more about this matter
And cite the sayings of the saintly four doctors,12
Or rely on Luke to show it’s no lie,13
For a godparent seeing their godchild in grief,
75 In anguish or misery, will offer some aid
Or else in Purgatory will pay the price,
Since looking after children too little to know law
Means not just giving them names that mean nothing.
“No Christian creature would sit crying at the gate
80 For bread or pottage if prelates were pious.
A Jew will not see a Jew go starving
For the wealth of the world if he can help it:
Why cannot then Christians care for each other?
The Jews whom we judge to be Judas’s fellows
85 Will help each other when any is in need.
It is shameful if Christians cannot be as kind
And as gentle as the Jews, like whom we should behave;
I foresee that such stinginess will make us all suffer.
“Even bishops should be blamed if they mistreat beggars;
90 It is worse than Judas to be generous to jokers
And to drive away beggars when they’re dirtily dressed:
A prelate too greedy to give out Christ’s goods
Betrays him like Judas; to take unjustly
A pauper’s pittance is just as depraved.14
95 Such reprehensible behavior is wrong
And insults the Lord and what Solomon says:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.15
“To fear God is good, but there’s far more virtue
In loving the Lord than in fearing his vengeance;
And to do best betokens attempting all the time
100 To waste not a word and to use that time wisely:
Who offends in one point, is guilty of all.16
For ill use of time, as Truth will tell,
Is hated most heartily by God in heaven;
And the squandering of speech comes second since speech
Is a song that has sprung from the grace of God.
105 Shall the Father find his fiddle untuned
And his minstrels mocking his music in taverns?
By God’s good grace, all goodly men
Can everywhere and always earn a living
If they want to work and are willing and true:
They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.17
110 “And folk truly wedded do well in this world
For they sweat and they strive to keep and sustain it,
And from that very stock have sprung up confessors,
Knights and clergy, commoners and kings,
Maidens and martyrs, who all come from one man,
115 And the woman is the way that such work has progressed.
Hence marriages are made by some mediating person
With advice from the fathers and then from good friends,
And the willing consent of the spouses themselves,
Since marriage was made by God Almighty,
120 Who witnessed that heaven can be here on earth.18
But folk who are false and faithless or thieve,
And swindlers and scroungers, are conceived out of wedlock,
At an uncouth hour, I conclude, like Cain,
For the psalmist says of such sinful scoundrels,
He hath conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity.19
125 “Those coming from Cain reach evil ends.
For God sent to Seth and said through an angel,
‘I order your descendants to wed your descendants
And not to couple with the kindred of Cain.’
But some would not heed that edict of heaven
130 And consorted in sin with descendants of Cain
Until God grew angry at their insolent antics,
Which made him regret the making of man:
It repented him that he had made man.20
He hastened to Noah and urged him to hurry:
‘You must build a ship out of beams and boards
135 For yourself and three sons, and your wives besides.
Go aboard the boat and bide your time
For forty days till the flood has fallen
And washed away Cain and his wicked clan.
All the animals also shall heavily curse
140
The coming of Cain which will cause them to die
In the dales and the hills for his damnable deeds:
Every beast, every bird that flies up above,
Excluding one couple of every kind,
Which shall be preserved in your shingled ship.’
145 “Thus folk had to pay for their forefathers’ faults
And suffered as a sequel to their ancestor’s sin,
Though the Gospel, I grant, seems to disagree:
The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son.21
But I find, if the father is false and a rogue,
That the son will have some of his father’s spots.
150 Graft an apple on an elder, and how can it be
That the apple is sweet? And the same with a scoundrel,
Who brings forth bairns that are bound to be bad,
For offspring inherit the flavor of the father:
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?22
“Thus accursed Cain caused the misery that came
155 Because folk were flouting God’s will when they wed.
To marry off children in so mindless a manner
Can only bring sorrow, and I’ve seen for myself
That when marriages are made in quest of money,
The progeny cause such permanent pain
160 As befell the folk I referred to before.
The good should wed good, though they may lack gold,
For Christ can advance such folk as he favors:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.23
And to countenance matching a maid to a man
Who’s decrepit, by Christ, is far from comely,
165 And so is wedding a widow for her wealth
When her belly can no longer bear a man bairns.
Since the Plague many pairs have plunged into marriage,
But their offspring have only been angry words,
Jealousy, joylessness, joint disaffection,
170 Querulous quibbling and quarrels in bed.
If they went to Dunmow they would not win
The famous flitch unless their oath were false
Or they had the help of the devil himself.24
“So I counsel all Christians not to conclude
175 A marriage that’s made for money or wealth.
Bachelors should seek out spinsters as spouses,
And widowers and widows should walk the same path,
Looking that they wed not for land but for love,
Thus gaining God’s grace and enough worldly goods.
180 Any layman who cannot be continent for life25
Should marry sensibly and stay free of sin,
For lecherous living will lead him to hell.
So while you are young and your weapon’s unwieldy,
Wear it out wiving if you want to do well:
185 While you have your strength, don’t spend it with strumpets,
For a harlot’s hallway is the highway of death.26
“And when you’ve a wife, be aware of the time,
Unlike Adam and Eve when Cain was first caused.
At determined times betwixt man and wife
190 There should be no bedding; nor should they combine
Save when their lives and souls are spotless
And their charity is perfect and their persons are pure.
It will please the Lord if they lead such lives,
For marriage was made by God Almighty:
For fear of fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.27
195 Those born out of wedlock are wont to be wastrels,
False folk, foundlings, fraudsters and liars,
Who lack the grace to win love or a living
But wander and squander such stuff as they scavenge.
They serve the devil, disdaining Do-well
200 And after their deaths they shall dwell with the devil
Unless God grants them the grace to do good.
“To do well is to do as the law ordains,
But believe me, friend, to love friend and foe
Is better, and best is to aid and to help
205 Both young and old with healing and alms.
A Do-well will dread God, a Do-better suffers,
And a Do-best does both and brings within bounds
The wayward will that thwarts good works
And drives out Do-well through deadly sins.”
1The original name of the lady is Anima, but she is clearly distinct from the character of that name who appears in Step XV.
2John xii 31.
3Langland may be thinking of the Welsh Marches, the borderlands west of the Malvern Hills.
4Psalm cxlviii 4 (KJV Psalm cxlviii 5).
5Genesis i 26.
6Cf. Proverbs iv 23.
7Philippians iii 19.
8Cf. 1 John iii 8.
91 John iv 16.
10Matthew xxv 12 and Psalm lxxx 12 (KJV Psalm lxxxi 12).
11Lines 66–70 are rearranged.
12Saint Ambrose was Bishop of Milan in the late fourth century, Augustine was Bishop of Hippo (in North Africa) at the same time, Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin in the fourth to fifth century, and Gregory was elected Pope at the end of the sixth century. All wrote doctrinal works.
13Not in Luke, but the general duty to care for the fatherless and widows is referred to in James i 27.
14Both quotations are from Peter Cantor’s Compendium Chapter xlvii.
15Proverbs i 7 and ix 10.
16James ii 10.
17Psalm xxxiv 10.
18Cf. Genesis i 28 and John ii 2: God created marriage, and Jesus was a witness at a marriage.
19Psalm vii 15 (KJV Psalm vii 14).
20Genesis vi 6.
21Ezechiel (KJV Ezekiel) xviii 20.
22Matthew vii 16.
23John xiv 6.
24A side of bacon was awarded by the town to any couple who could take an oath after their first year of marriage that they had never quarreled.
25“Layman” includes the secular clergy, i.e. priests who have not taken final vows.
26Latin verses by the miracle-working monk and Langland’s contemporary, John of Bridlington.
271 Corinthians vii 2.
Step X
In which Dame Study, Intelligence’s wife, tells him he is wasting his breath on a fool like me, but grudgingly directs me to her cousin Learning and his wife Scripture, warning me of pitfalls on the way. Learning gives a different explanation of Do-well, Do-better and Do-best, pointing out that all in holy orders should behave well lest their cloisters are sequestrated. Scripture speaks at length of those who may be saved, and of the limitations of learning.
Intelligence had a spouse, a certain Dame Study.
She was sharp in the face and slender of frame
And was furious Intelligence should teach me such things.
She gave him a glare and grimly pronounced,
&
nbsp; 5 “Well, you’re a wise one to waste your wisdom
On flatterers and fools that have feathers for brains.”
She took him to task and told him to stop
“Offering words of wisdom to witless buffoons;
So pray noli mittere your priceless pearls
10 Before swine who only eat hips and haws.
They cannot appreciate Paradise and pearls
And would sooner satisfy their hunger with swill.1
I mean the many people who make it plain
By their actions they would rather have riches and rents
15 And lordships and land and ease upon earth
Than all of the sayings of Solomon the sage.
Intelligence and wisdom are worth not a wit
These days unless combed into covetous cloth.
It is those who contrive to twist the truth,
20 Who dodge and weave and do others down
In the settlement of suits, whose counsel is sought,
And their lies mislead both judges and lords.
“Job says in his story,” Dame Study continued,
“That wicked men wield the wealth of this world,
25 Ignoring and neglecting the letter of the law:
Why then do the wicked live? Why is it well with all them that transgress, and do wickedly?2
The psalms say the same of such that do ill:
Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches.3
Holy Scripture says, ‘Lo! How lordly they look,
The miserly and mean who have most from God
Yet care the least for the common comfort:
They have destroyed the things which thou hast made: but what has the just man done?’4
30 Jokers and japesters are paid for their jests,
For their rudeness, ribaldry and riotous songs,
But those who speak of the sacred Scriptures,
Of the tales of Tobit and the twelve apostles,
And preach of the sentence that Pilate imposed
35 On gentle Jesus whom the Jews abused,
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