Piers Plowman
Page 16
Are little liked or loved for such lessons,
Nor rewarded or welcomed, as God is my witness!
“Those loud-mouths who live by bragging and lies,
And flout our Lord’s law with foolery and falsehood,
40 Who spit and spew out speech that is foul,
Who slurp and slobber and seek attention,
Making fun of those folk who won’t finance their pranks,
Know as much about music that makes men’s hearts glad
As Mutch the Miller about psalms and the Mass,
45 And but for their smut and licentious stories,
No king or count or canon of Saint Paul’s
Would give them a groat to greet the New Year!
But nowadays minstrelsy and mirth among men
Are flattery, filth, and vulgar stories
50 Of the sort that satisfy Gluttony and Swearing.
“When the singing stops and they speak of Christ
In their cups, the coarse and the cultivated too
Betray the Trinity by talking baloney,
Bleating balderdash and misquoting Saint Bernard,
55 Saying two of the Trinity murdered the third,
As if they had some knowledge of heaven,
Chewing at God when their guts are gorged,
While the careworn clamor and cry at the gate,
Famished and frozen and fainting with thirst.
60 They won’t take them in or offer them help;
But they shun them and shout and shoo them like dogs.
Those sharing so shabbily their plenty with the poor
Cannot love the Lord who allowed them so much,
For without the mercy of modester men
65 Beggars would go empty-bellied to bed.
God is much in the mouths of these great masters
But his mercy is met with in humbler men,
And so say the psalms,” Dame Study observed.
“Behold we have heard of it in Ephrata: we have found it in the fields of the wood.5
Clergy and their kind are keen to quote God;
70 They have him in their mouths, but the humble in their hearts.
“Friars and fraudsters have fashioned excuses
That pander to the proud since the time of the Plague.
Now they preach at Saint Paul’s as rivals to priests
So that folk have lost faith, are not free with their goods
75 Nor are sorry for their sins; indeed pride has so spread
Among clergy and laity, lordly and lowly,
That prayers have no power to halt the Plague!
For God is now deaf and does not deign
To hear us but slaughters us sinners for our sins.6
80 Yet these worldly wastrels still heed no warning,
Nor does dread of death reduce their pride
Or induce them to do their charitable duty.
Out of gluttony they gaily consume their own goods,
Giving nothing to beggars, as they’re bid in the Bible:
Deal thy bread to the hungry, and bring the needy and the harborless into thy house; when thou shalt see one naked, cover him.7
85 And the more they amass, the more money and wealth,
The more land and lordships, the less they give out.
The wealthy should weigh up the words of Tobit,
Who says in Scripture in straightforward terms:
If thou have much, give abundantly: if thou have little, take care even so to bestow willingly a little.8
Those with much give much, those with little, give little,
90 For no law lays down how long we shall live.
If only lords would learn from such lessons,
And ponder how best to support their people
Instead of feasting like fiddlers or friars
In other men’s houses and neglecting their own!
95 If the master and mistress are always missing
The dining hall becomes both dismal and drear.
Moreover the rich now eat on their own
In private parlors out of ‘pity for the poor,’
In heated chambers with chimneys and hearths
100 Removed from the hall that was made for meals,
To ensure, they say, that no spending is wasted.
“And I’ve heard the haughty eating at table,
Discussing Christ as if they were clerics,
Finding fault with the Father who formed us all
105 And carping and quibbling at clerical teaching—
‘Why on earth did our Savior suffer the serpent
To deceive so swiftly the woman and her spouse,
Through his subtlety sending them straight to hell,
And why must their descendants suffer for their sin?’
110 And then they maintain that the Bible’s untrue.
‘For Christ declared in Scripture,’ they assert,
‘The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.9
So why should we be racked and ruined
For the deed Adam did? It’s ridiculous and wrong:
For every one shall bear his own burden.’10
“The proposals they put, these powerful persons,
115 Make the men who mull on them misbelieve,
But Imagination has the answer,
The good reply that is given by Augustine:
Know no more than is meet to know.11
Never look to learn why God allowed
120 The serpent Satan to seduce his seed,
But loyally believe in the lore of the Church
And pray to God for penance and pardon,
For mercy to mend your ways while you may.
Any person who expects to work out God’s plan
125 Deserves to have his eyeball shoved up his arse
And his finger after for asking for answers
Why God let Satan succeed in his scheming
Or why Judas betrayed Lord Jesus to the Jews.
All was as God wanted, we worship him for it,
130 And however we argue, it always will be.
“And those who think up confusing theories
How Do-better differs from Do-well somehow,
I hope they go deaf for they have no idea.
Unless they live the life of a Do-well
135 I’ll willingly wager they won’t Do-better,
However much Do-best may urge them on.”
When Intelligence took in the tale his wife told
He was so disconcerted he could not respond
And he drew back in silence as dumb as death,
140 And
nothing I could say, though I knelt on my knees,
Could persuade him to speak a syllable of sense.
He glanced at Dame Study and smiled and shrugged,
Seeming to say I must seek her good grace.
So when I realized what he wanted
145 I bowed and said, “Madam, I beg you mercy.
Your man I’ll remain as long as I live
And I’ll always act as you tell me I ought
If you’ll please explain what Do-well implies.”
Dame Study responded, “For your meekness and mildness
150 I’ll let you take lessons from my cousin called Learning.12
Within these six months he has married a mistress
Of all seven arts, the scholarly Dame Scripture.13
I trust that these two will do as I tell them
And will promptly point out the path to Do-well.”
155 That made me as merry as a minstrel paid money
Or a bird in the blue on a blissful morning,
And I begged for the best way to Learning’s abode
And a word of greeting, for I wanted to go.
“First seek out the highway,” she said, “to Suffer-
160 Both-well-and-woe-if-you-wish-to-learn,
Then ride on past Riches but do not rest:
If you linger too long you’ll never reach Learning.
And leave on your left the land of Loose Living,
Make sure it’s removed by a mile or more.
165 Then you’ll come to a court called Keep-well-your-tongue-
From-lying-and-license-and-liquorous-drinks.
Then you’ll see Soberness and Simplicity-of-speech,
Where everyone is eager to open their mind,
Which will lead you to Learning that’s truly enlightened.
170 “As a sign you may say that I sent him to school.
And greet his wife too for I gave her the gifts
To set down the psalms and Solomon’s Wisdom.
I lectured her in logic and the whole of the law,
And I made her familiar with musical modes.
175 I taught first principles to Plato the poet,
And Aristotle and others I taught to argue.
I began the first grammar for girls and boys,
And I beat them relentlessly unless they would learn.
I contrived the tools for crafts of all types,
180 For carpentry and carving, and compasses for masons,
And level and line, though I lack their keen sight.
“But theology has trumped me time after time:
The more I muse on it, the mistier it seems
And the deeper I delve the darker I find it;
185 It is not a science for subtle disquisition
And is empty and hollow if love is lacking.
But I love it best when love is its lodestone,
And grace never lacks where love takes the lead.
If you’re looking for Do-well, be loyal to love
190 For Do-better and Do-best are endued with love.
“In un–Christian philosophy, Cato proclaims:
Where sweet words are spoken but the speaker is false
Use similar art to outsmart and deceive.14
That is the course that is counseled by Cato,
195 But to those who take heed theology offers
An opposite argument that we ought to be
Like brothers and pray for people who abuse us,
To love those who lie and relieve their needs,
To give back good, says God, for evil:
Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of the faith.15
200 Saint Paul, who loved purity, preached that people
Should show love of God and do good by giving
To needy folk who follow our faith.
And our Lord also taught us to love our belittlers
And not to hurt any who injure or harm us:
Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay.16
205 Therefore look that you love as long as you live:
There is no study so sovereign for the soul.
“For astronomy is niggling and not worth knowing;
Geometry and geomancy are just as hazy,
Producing little profit for people who explore them
210 Since sorcery supplies the chief source of their study.
But the subject that’s especially slippery and unsafe
Is the fraud of alchemy, which befuddles and is false:
If you want to do well, keep away from that.
I invented these sciences and their subtleties myself,
215 For the simple purpose of deceiving people.
Go and say what I’ve said to Learning and Scripture,
And request them kindly to make Do-well clear.”
I saluted the lady and left her with thanks
And went on my way at once without stopping
220 Or respite or rest till I reached Master Learning.
When I got there I greeted the good old man
And his wife as well, and I bowed to them both
And told them the tale that I had been taught.
No warmer welcome since God made the world
225 Was afforded a visitor than the friendship I found.
They set me at ease as soon as I said
I had tramped the highway from Intelligence’s house
And was sent by Dame Study to seek their advice
And to learn about Do-well, Do-better and Do-best.
230 “To do well,” said Learning, “and lead a good life,
Whether learned or not, means believing loyally
In all the articles of faith that there are,
In the great Lord God who had no beginning,
And the sole true Son who saved mankind
235 From the darkness of death and the power of the devil
With the aid and the help of the Holy Ghost,
Which proceeds from them both, the same yet separate,
Being one single God, yet God three in one,
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost,
240 The maker of man and the maker of beasts.
“Saint Augustine wrote glosses on the point long ago
To confirm us fully in our faith, and he took
The four Evangelists as his firm foundation,
With Christ himself, who says in Scripture:
I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and
He that seeth me seeth the Father also.17
245 That cannot be explained by the cleverest of clergy,
And yet for the laity it belongs to belief,
For no one has the intellect and knowledge that are needed,
And faith would be facile if easily fathomed:
Faith has no merit where demands are made
250 For positive proof from people’s past.18
“To do better is to suffer for the sake of your soul
The torments and trials you are told by the Church,
And to beg while you may for God’s measureless mercy,
By showing in your deeds what you say in your speech
255 And proving by your actions you’re the person you appear—
Both be what you seem and seem what you be—19
So that no one is hoodwinked by how you behave
And you are in your soul what you seem at first sight.
“Doing best means bringing the guilty to book,
260 Once you can see that your soul is unsullied.
But cast no blame if you could be accused:
Before you accuse, take care you are faultless,
In case your own guilt will cause you discredit.20
For God in the Gospel grimly reproves
265 Accusers who cannot claim to be clean:
And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye?
Cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.21
Every blundering blind man had best cure himself,
Such as priests and parsons who ought to preach
And teach other men to make amends.
So before you start, as these verses aver,
270 It is safest to check you are such as you say.
For preach as you will, God’s word still applies
And is clear to you clerics, if not to the commons.
But from what can be seen it certainly seems
That the way God’s word is now put to work
275 Is the manner remarked on in the Gospel of Mark:
Can the blind lead the blind? Do they not both fall into the ditch?22
Yet simple folk surely can see the beam
In the eyes of priests, whose perfidy has put