And their wrangling roused me and I looked around,
140 And saw that the sun now sat in the south.
On the Malvern Hills with no meal and no money
I mused on my vision as I ventured forth.
I have frequently reflected on this dream-like vision.
Was there substance to what I saw while I slept?
145 What of Piers the Plowman with his pensive ways,
And the pardon he was promised for people who do well,
And the priest who responded that it seemed too simple?
But I see no sense in deciphering dreams.
For as Cato and masters in Canon Law proclaim:
150 Take no notice of dreams for dreams show nonsense.19
But the Bible offers the opposite instance
Of Daniel addressing the dreams of a king
Whose name is given as Nebuchadnezzar.20
“Sire,” said Daniel, “I deduce your dreams
155 Mean hot-blooded horsemen wreak havoc in your kingdom,
Dividing the land with lesser lords.”
It fell out indeed as Daniel predicted:
The king lost his power to petty princes.
And young Joseph saw eleven stars and the sun
160 And the moon bow down in a dumbfounding dream,
Which Jacob the father of Joseph judged
To convey the following: “In time of famine
Myself and my sons shall seek out your aid.”
It fell out as forecast when Pharaoh was king
165 In Egypt and Joseph was his high-ranking judge,
For his family fled from famine to find him.
It makes me reflect in my mind on the vision
Of the priest disapproving of a pardon for Do-well.21
Do-well can do without such indulgence,
170 Or a bull from a bishop or the benefit of Masses,
For Do-well shall be seated in dignity at Doomsday,
Surpassing all the pardons of Saint Peter’s Church.
The Pope has power to grant pardons to people
To enter heaven without undergoing penance.
175 That is our belief, which we’ve learnt from the learned:
Whatever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven.22
And I loyally believe (Lord forbid else!)
That pardon and penance and prayers may save
Those souls who commit the Seven Deadly Sins,
But to trust for remission to three-yearly Masses
180 Is surely not as safe for the soul as good deeds.
For that reason I suggest to the rich of this realm
Who have money for remembrance in Requiem Masses
That they be not so bold as to break the ten laws—
Most of all judges, ministers and mayors,
185 Who are held to be wise and wield the world’s wealth
And can purchase a patent or a bull from the Pope.
At the dreadful doom when the dead shall arise
You will come before Christ to render account
How you led your lives and lived by his laws.
190 What you did day by day will then be adduced,
And no pocketful of pardons or letters from prelates
Or formal allegiance to all four schools of friars
Or double indulgences will do any good,
For your pardons and patents won’t amount to a pie.
195 So I counsel all Christians to cry God mercy,
And Mary his mother who mediates for us.
May God grant us grace before going to our graves
To do such deeds while dwelling on earth
That at Doomsday after the day of our death
200 Do-well will deem that we did as he asked.
1Psalm xiv 5 (KJV Psalm xv 5).
2No known biblical source.
3Psalm xiv 1 (KJV Psalm xv 1).
4Matthew vii 12.
5Dionysius Cato, Breves Sententiae 23.
6Peter Comestor, the author of the Scholarly Histories. The quotation is not exact.
7Not Saint Gregory but Jerome’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes xi 6.
8This block of 27 un-numbered lines is taken from the C version of the poem (Skeat X, Schmidt IX 71–97).
9Proverbs xix 17: “He that hath mercy on the poor, lendeth to the Lord; and he will repay him.”
10Luke xix 23.
11Saint Jerome, Epistles cxxxv.
12Psalm xxxvii 25.
13Athanasian Creed, from Matthew xxv 46.
14Psalm xxii 4 (KJV Psalm xxiii 4).
15Psalm xli 4 (KJV Psalm xlii 3).
16Not Luke but Matthew vi 31.
17Psalms xiii 1 and lii 1 (KJV Psalms xiv 1 and liii 1).
18Proverbs xxii 10.
19Dionysius Cato, Distich ii 31.
20Daniel iii.
21The “do well” of the pardon, and “Do-better” and “Do-best,” are treated henceforward both as persons and as injunctions, and “Do-well” sometimes as God.
22Matthew xvi 19.
Step VIII
In which I set out on my quest for how to do well. I meet a pair of friars, who tell me that Do-well lives with them and that avoiding sin is as hard as standing still in a rocking boat. To the sound of bird-song I fall asleep again, and in my third dream I see Thought, who has always been with me, trying to explain Do-well, Do-better and Do-best. Still mystified, I ask Intelligence to tell me the difference between them.
Thus robed in cheap russet I roamed about
For a summer season to seek out Do-well.
I frequently confronted folk to find out
If they had an idea where Do-well might dwell
5 And what manner of man he might perhaps be.
But wherever I went, no one was aware
Where the fellow I sought might finally be found,
Till one Friday I encountered a couple of friars,
Franciscan scholars who studied the divine.
10 I greeted them graciously, as I knew was good,
And before they went on I asked them to answer
Whether they had come in their travels to a country
Or a land where Do-well was likely to live,
For they walked more miles than most other men
15 And had seen more countries and courts of all kinds,
Both princely palaces and poor men’s hovels,
And doubtless the dwellings of Do-well and Do-ill.
But their dictum was that Do-well “dwells among us
And always has, and I hope always will.”
20 I replied like a scholar by disputing the statement.
“‘A just man slips up and sins,’ the book says,1
‘Seven times daily,’ and in doing those sins
He must certainly do ill,” I said, “and it’s accepted
That Do-well and Do-ill cannot dwell together.
25 Ergo Do-well is frequently
found not with friars,
But further afield teaching folk not to sin.”
“I shall show you, my son,” the friar responded,
“How seven times daily a saintly man sins
By painting a picture as a parable to teach you.
30 Say the man is sailing on a seething sea;
The wind and the waves, and the wallowing craft
May cause him to tumble time after time,
For as straight as he stands, he slips if he moves,
Though he’s safe if he stays as he is, which he should.
35 But if he should reach out and wrench the rudder,
The storm and the swell will swallow the boat
And his life will be lost through his own foolish lapse.
And thus,” said the friar, “it fares with folk.
The water waxes and wanes like the world,
40 And the wealth of the world is like the great waves
That well up and fall with the wind and the weather.
The boat is our body, brittle and frail
Which the fiend and the flesh and the fickle world
Seven times daily incite to do sin.
45 But the sin is not deadly where Do-well dwells,
For Charity, his champion, challenges sin,
And strengthens us so that we steer our souls.
Thus though our body bobs about like the boat,
Our soul is safe unless we ourselves
50 Decide to do sin and to drown our soul.
God will not stop us if so we decide,
For he gave us the gifts to govern ourselves:
Free will and intelligence to work as we wish.
Even birds and beasts and fish have both
55 But man has the most and is most to blame
If he does ill despite them and disobeys Do-well.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, “all you say,
But I’ll try to learn if allowed to live.”
“Then be counseled by Christ on his cross,” said the friar.
60 “May he save you also,” I answered, “from evil,
And give you the grace to be good men on earth.”
Then on I went, wandering on my own
Through a heath that was wild, till walking by a wood
I was startled by the sound of birds that were singing,
65 And I stopped and leant on a linden tree to listen
For a time to the song that the sweet birds sang.
But the merry little sound soon sent me to sleep,
And I dreamt the oddest, most disconcerting dream
That anyone ever experienced on earth.
70 A large man who looked just like myself
Accosted me and called out my Christian name.
“Who are you,” I asked, “that you know who I am?”
“You know well enough,” he announced. “None better.”
“I do?” “I dare say you do for I’m Thought,
75 And you’ve seen me beside you for years, I’m sure.”
“If you’re Thought,” I said, “you can certainly say
Where Do-well lives, which I’d love to learn.”
“Do-well, Do-better and Do-best besides,
Are three fine virtues, not far to find:
80 If you tell the truth and toil with your hands
And live from your labor or work your land,
If you keep true accounts and claim what is due,
Are not drunk or disdainful, you do well enough.
“Do-better manages to do that and more.
85 He’s meek and modest and never foul-mouthed,
He meets people’s needs as much as he may,
He bursts right open the bags and the bundles
That the Earl of Avarice and his heirs hold tight,
And he makes good friends with Mammon and his money.
90 He clarifies the Bible to cloistered clergy
And preaches to people the words of Saint Paul:
You gladly suffer the foolish; whereas yourselves are wise.2
“And Do-best the bishop is above them both;
His cross has a hook to hoist men from hell,
And a pointed end to poke down the pests
95 Who plot misdeeds that dishonor Do-well.
And Do-well and Do-better between them have ordained
That a king should be crowned to hold court over both.
Should Do-well or Do-better do down Do-best,
The king will then come and cast them in prison
100 For life unless Do-best solicits release.
Thus Do-well, Do-better and Do-best besides
Have crowned a king to keep the peace
And to rule the realm as the three of them reason,
And only to act if he has their consent.”
105 I said thank you to Thought for teaching me thus,
Though I still wasn’t satisfied by what he said.
“I’d like to be enlightened a little bit more:
What do Do-well, Do-better and Do-best do?”
“Intelligence can tell you ,” said Thought, “where they live.
110 I know of no one who knows more than he.”
So for three days then I walked on with Thought,
Enlarging on Do-well, day after day,
Until Intelligence overtook us by chance.
He was long and lean and like no one else,
115 Neither proud in apparel nor excessively poor,
And so solemn and grave and softly spoken
That I dared not touch on contentious topics,
And I said that Thought should speak instead
On a theme that would test Intelligence’s wits:
120 How Do-well and Do-better differed from Do-best.
So Thought spoke for me the following phrase:
“Here’s Will wants to tell if Intelligence can teach him
Where Do-well, Do-better and Do-best may live,
And if they are found in human form,
125 For his aim is to act like all of the three.”
1Proverbs xxiv 16: “For a just man shall fall seven times and shall rise again.”
22 Corinthians xi 19. Two lines are then omitted to avoid repetition.
Step IX
In which Intelligence tells me of the castle of Flesh crafted by Nature and guarded by Mind and his sons, the five senses, where Lady Life is watched over by Do-well and his daughter, Do-better, under the eye of Do-best. Intelligence explains what each is, cautions me against misuse of body and mind, and points to the importance of marrying wisely.
“Sir Do-well dwells not a day from here,”
Intelligence told us, “in a castle that’s crafted
By Na
ture from the elements earth and air,
Both well combined with wind and water.
5 And within the castle, carefully enclosed,
Nature has lodged a beloved who is like him.
She’s the lady called Life who is loathed by Envy,1
A proud French prancer, a ‘prince of this world,’2
Who wishes he could woo her away with his wiles.
10 “But Nature is wary and warned and watches,
And has delegated Do-well, the Duke of these Marches,3
With his daughter Do-better, who acts as her damsel,
Loyally to look to her needs in life,
With Do-best above them, to be like a bishop
15 And rule them rightly: they do as he directs,
And the lady called Life acts as he asks.
“The constable of the castle, who keeps good watch,
Is a knowing knight whose name is Mind.
He fathered by his first wife five fine sons,
20 Sir See-well, Sir Say-well, the civil Sir Hear-well,
The hale and hearty Sir Work-well-with-your-hands,
And Sir Godfrey Go-well, who’s as great as the rest.
Their task is to protect the tender Lady Life
Till Nature comes and calls her to his keeping.”
25 “What kind of creature is Nature?” I inquired.
“Nature,” said Intelligence, “contrived all things,
He’s the father who formed every facet of life,
The God so great that he had no beginning,
God of light and life, of pleasure and pain,
30 And angels and all things are at his will,
Though man most resembles him in stature and shape.
“The beasts all sprang from the sentence he spoke:
He commanded, and they were created.4
Yet man he made to be most like himself,
And Eve from man’s rib without other aid.
35 As the solitary source he said, ‘Let us make,’5
But aware that it wanted more than his word,
Added that, ‘My strength must assist my speech,’
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