Piers Plowman

by William Langland

  135  On joking japesters, harlots and whores,

       While God’s own people perish as paupers.

       But priests and clerics who pile up cash

       Lose it or leave it to light-fingered crooks

       Or die intestate and attract the attention

  140  Of the bishop and his men who make merry with the money:

       ‘The man was a miser too mean to give a penny

       To friend or foe, confound him,’ they say.

       ‘His household was always empty-handed and cold,

       So we’ll laugh as we spend what he struggled to save.’

  145  The lordly and lowly reluctant to spend

       All lose their goods once they give up the ghost,

       While the good are regretted and greatly lamented,

       And are missed and remembered for their generous meals

       In prayers and penances and charitable payments.”

  150  “What is charity?” I asked. “It’s child’s play,” he answered:

           “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.10

       It’s the will to give freely without foolhardy folly.”

       “Where can I find such a friend who gives freely?

       For as long I’ve lived in this land as Long Will,11

       Nowhere I’ve known true charity meet needs.

  155  People are compassionate to beggars and the poor

       And make loans if they’re likely to recover the lot,

       But I swear I’ve seen no charity of the sort

       That is pleasing to our Savior and was praised by Saint Paul:

           Charity is not puffed up; is not ambitious, seeketh not her own.12

       For everyone I see, so help me, wants to have

  160  Whatever is his and often desires

       What he scarcely requires but will steal if he can.

       Clerics may proclaim that Christ is universal,

       But I see him solely in the mirror as myself:

           We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face.13

       From the tales of Charity that are told I think

  165  That his territory is neither tournaments nor trade.”

       “No, Charity doesn’t bargain or beat his breast,

       Is not covetous, is as proud of a penny as a pound,

       Is as glad of a gray as a gaudy coat,

       Of a woolen smock as of silks and scarlet,

  170  Rejoices at joy and is generous to the wicked,

       And relieves and loves all those made by the Lord.

       He curses no creature and cannot bear wrath,

       Doesn’t laugh men to scorn or like to tell lies,

       He accepts what men say as the simple truth

  175  And suffers all slights in silent forbearance

       For his only hope is for heavenly bliss.”

       “Has he rent from property or rich companions?”

       “He reckons nothing to rents and riches,

       For he’s never been failed by a friend when in need,

  180  Thy will be done, which well meets his wants,14

       And he eats just a helping of Hope in God.15

       He paints the Lord’s Prayer with Hail Mary pigments,

       And his other pastime is to plead for pardons

       By making a pilgrimage to prisons and the poor,

  185  Though he brings not bread but a better food,

       The love and relief that our Lord enjoined.

       And when he is weary from doing such work,

       He labors in a laundry for as long as it takes

       And assiduously seeks in his sometime youth

  190  For pride and its properties and parcels them up

       And beats and bleaches them clean in his breast

       With I have labored in my groanings till the grime is gone,16

       Then he washes them with water that is warm from his eyes

       And sobs sometimes as he sings another psalm:

           A contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”17

  195  “By Christ,” I cried, “I wish we were acquainted!”

       “That’s impossible except through Piers the Plowman.”

       “But the clergy,” I said, “must surely have seen him.”

       “The clergy only witness men’s works and their words,

       But Piers,” he replied, “penetrates deeper

  200  Into why people suffer and their secret wishes:

           Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: Why do you think evil in your hearts?18

       For proud-hearted people may talk genteelly

       And defer to figures of authority and finance,

       But they treat the poor with total contempt

       And counter their critics with the claws of a lion.

  205  And some beggars with beads who appear to be praying

       May look to be lambs who lead holy lives

       But they put on their penury to pick up their food,

       Not pining for purity or seeking for penance.

       So you will not spot Charity by what he wears,

  210  By his words or deeds or what his heart wills,

       Which no one can know, not even clerics,

       Only Piers the Plowman, Peter, that is, Christ.19

       “He is not among idlers or ambling hermits

       Or anchorites holding out boxes for alms:

  215  Such deceivers and their sponsors deserve not a bean.

       Charity is God’s champion, a well-mannered child;

       His speech will sparkle when he sits at table,

       The love in his heart lending it lightness;

       He’s the comforting company that Christ desired:

           Be not as the hypocrites, sad.20

  220  I have seen him in silks as well as in smocks,

       In gray cloth and glad rags and gilded armor,

       Which he’ll give away gladly to regale the needy.

       “Kings Edward the Confessor and Edmund are famed

       And respected as saints for the charity they showed.

  225  I’ve seen Charity sing, recite lessons and psalms,

       I have seen him both ride and run about in rags,

       But nowhere and never have I known him to beg.

       He strolls abroad rather in robes that are rich,

       With short hair, skull cap and a shaven crown.

  230  He was formerly found in a friar’s habit,

       Far back in history in the age of Saint Francis,

       But since then he’s seldom been seen in such sects.

       Yet he honors the wealthy and welcomes their alms

       If the lives that they lead are honest and loyal:

           Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish.21

  235
  “He comes quite often to the court of the King,

       Except when Covetousness sits in council,

       But is seldom seen in the society of jesters

       Who backbite, brawl and bear false witness.

       He is rarely encountered in the clerical courts,

  240  Where hearings are endless without heavy back-handers

       And marriages are made and unmade for money,

       The doctors of law indecently undoing

       What Conscience and Christ have concluded and sealed.

       “His abode was once with archbishops and bishops,

  245  And prelates of the Church, and his previous practice

       Was to parcel their patrimony out to the poor;

       Now Avarice has the keys and keeps it for his kin,

       His executors and servants, and some for their children.

       I don’t say who’s responsible, but O Lord, save us

  250  And give us the grace to make Charity our guide!

       “If you meet him, you’ll note his remarkable manners,

       For he does not accuse or curse or acclaim

       Or boast or rebuke or flatter or frown,

       Or crave or covet or cry out for more:

           In peace in the self same I will sleep.22

  255  To live he relies on the love of Christ’s Passion,

       Neither begging nor borrowing nor embracing loans,

       Nor harming nor speaking ill of others.

       Christians should copy this gentle kindness,

       And hold in their hearts when they’re harried by troubles

  260  That Christ suffered more than the misery they meet,

       And our Father prefers that we follow his example

       And avoid taking vengeance for falsehood on foes.

       We are well aware that unless God had willed it,

       Neither Judas nor the Jews would have crucified Jesus,

  265  Nor imprisoned and martyred Saints Peter and Paul.

       But he suffered to show us we should suffer as well,

       And to people in pain said, The patient shall conquer.

       “This is proved,” said Soul, “by plenty of passages

       In the Lives of the Saints, who certainly suffered

  270  Both penance and poverty and searing pain,

       In hunger and heat, and awful affliction.

       Saints Antony and Giles and other holy hermits

       Dwelt with wild beasts in the dangerous desert,

       And monks and mendicants, men by themselves,

  275  Kept to their caves and caverns in silence.

       Neither Antony nor Giles nor the other hermits

       Would take their livelihood from leopards or lions

       But were fed, say the books, by the birds up above,

       Save that Giles met a hind, and unhurriedly and gently

  280  Sustained himself by supping her milk,

       Though solely from time to time, the book tells,

       Not taking too much from the mild-mannered mother.23

       “Saint Antony was brought his bread by a bird

       Every day about noon, and anon it was enough,

  285  By God’s grace, for a guest whom Antony greeted.24

       Saint Paul, the first hermit, was so happily hidden

       By leaves and moss that he remained unremarked,

       Sustained by the birds season after season,

       Till he founded the fellowship of Austin Friars.25

  290  Saint Paul made baskets when he paused in his preaching,26

       And earned with his hands what his stomach asked;

       Peter fished for his food with his fellow Andrew,

       And they sold some, consumed some and so had enough;

       Mary Magdalene survived on divine devotion

  295  And endured eating roots and drinking the dew.27

       It would take me a week to tell you of the total

       Of the hermits who lived by the love of our Lord,

       And no lion or leopard that roamed the land,

       No bear or boar or other wild beast,

  300  Failed to fall to its feet and to fawn upon them.

       And could they have spoken, by Christ, I declare

       They’d have fed those saints faster than the fowls,

       For they showed all the courtesy such creatures can

       And everywhere humbly licked the saints’ hands.

  305  “But God sent bread by the birds, not the beasts,

       To mean that the meek should feed the mild,

       And that law-abiding folk should feed the religious,

       And the righteous relieve those who lead holy lives.

       If they found that the friars refused their alms

  310  And begged them to take money back where it was borrowed,

       Then lords and ladies would be loath to offend

       By taking from their tenants more than is true.

       For we are God’s fowls and must wait to be fed

       On the vital food that the birds provide.

  315  If you have thick broth and bread and penny ale,

       And you make a meal of them, you monks and friars,

       You already have enough, as we read in your Rule:

           Will the wild ass bray when he hath grass? Or will the ox low when he standeth before a full manger? and

           The nature of brute beasts condemneth thee, for with this common food they are content; and thine iniquity proceeds from plenty.28

       If folk were schooled in this story, they would spend

       Some five or six days in finding advice

  320  Before making over monies to monks and canons.

       You lords and ladies, you lack good counsel

       When disposing of property and depriving your heirs

       For the sake of prayers said by people who have plenty

       And are paid to pray for the souls of other patrons.

  325  “Who still observes this salutary prophecy:

           He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor?29

       If anyone performs it, then it is these poor friars!

       They beg for funds which they devote to their buildings,

       To indulging themselves and spoiling their servants,

       Thus taking for the have-nots from those who have!

  330  “You clerics and knights and commoners with cash

       Behave quite often as if you had a forest

       That was full of trees and you were trying to think

       Where to put and to plant yet more among them.

       For the rich give robes to those who are rich,

  335  Helping those who help them, funding those in no need,

       Like filling a barrel from a fast-flowing flood

       And then taking and tipping the water in the Thames,

       Cosseting the fort
unate with food and clothes.30

       You clergy with cash should care more for beggars

  340  Than wealthy burghers, as the books will warn you:

       It is sacrilege to pocket the property of paupers;

       A dole given sinners is a sacrifice to demons;

       A poor monk dispenses less than he is proffered

       But he steals if he stores up more than essential

  345  For a monk has no needs if he meets those of nature.31

       Christians and Charity should come to an accord,

       For Charity is certain to discharge the soul,

       Freeing prisoners from Purgatory by the power of his prayers.

       But the clergy are culpable and at fault, it is clear,

  350  For the fact that folk are not firm in their faith.

       A florin that is forged may look like a florin,

       With the proper stamp, but the silver is soft.

       Thus it fares with some folk who say what is fair

       And are tonsured and have taken true holy orders,

  355  But their metal, their soul, is melded with sin:

       Both learned and lay folk are larded with sin,

       And none loves his neighbor, none loves our Lord.

       “Through wickedness and war, in weather that is strange,

       Weather-wise sailors and widely read scholars

  360  Lose faith in the firmament and findings of logic.

       Folk who could fairly foretell the future

       Now see their science and astronomy adrift,

       While shipmen and shepherds, on ship and on shore,

       Who once knew the future well from the welkin,

  365  Warning men often of weather and winds,

       And tillers of tilth who could tell their masters

       By the seed that they sowed what they might sell,

       What live by, what lend, so true was the land,

       Now those shepherds and sailors and tillers can’t see

  370  What course is correct, what quarter to steer,

       While astronomers argue, unable to say

       What causes the chaos in their calculations.

       The grounding of grammar is greeted with stares

       And no schoolchild I see can construct a letter

  375  Or a satisfactory stanza of verse.