“If I send my servants overseas to Bruges
Or apprentices to Prussia to bring back my profits,
395 To market my merchandise and change my money,
Neither Masses nor Matins nor any amusements,
No Our Father performed or penance fulfilled,
Can comfort me while I am worrying and waiting
For my mind is more on my merchandise abroad
400 Than the grace of God and the help that he gives:
For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.”27
This glutton had similarly soiled and besmirched
And bespattered his garment with slatternly speech.
He took God’s name when he needed not
And splattered his outfit with oath after oath,
405 And he ate and drank more than anyone could handle—
“Sometimes my surfeits have made me fall sick,
And I’ve dreaded to die in deadly sin”—
Till despairing, he gave up seeking to be saved.
For when sloth is so strong that nothing can shake it,
410 No prospect of mercy can prompt true penance.
What circumstance sucks a man down into sloth?
When he does not regret or grieve for misdeeds,
When he scorns the penance imposed by a priest,
When he fails in his faith and fears no sin,
415 When he hands out no alms and holds to no law;
When each day is a feast day for fairgrounds and fun,
And all that he’s after is cheap-jack humor,
And he hates to hear and detests those who talk
Of Christ and the cross and cleanness of soul,
420 Of penance or poor men or Passions of saints:
Such are the things preceding despair.
So you lords and ladies, and legates of the Church,
Who foster fools and flatterers and liars,
And feed them and fête them, refusing the poor,
425 And like to laugh and to listen to their jokes:
Woe to you that now laugh: for you shall mourn and weep.28
I dread to think that the day you die,
Those flatterers and fools and liars will be finished
For abettors of wrong face as bad retribution.29
Patriarchs and prophets and preachers of God’s word
430 Save men’s souls from hell through their sermons,
But flatterers and fools are followers of evil
And their tales entice men to tawdry sin.
Clerics should declaim what the Bible makes clear
And say to lords what it says in the psalms:
He that worketh pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house: he that speaketh unjust things did not prosper before my eyes.30
435 No impostor should be heard in public or in private
Where wise men consort, as Scripture says,
Nor conceit or smugness be suffered among lords.
Out of love for the King, the learned and lordly
Still listen politely to his minstrels at meals,
440 But rich men should rather make their revels with beggars,
The minstrels of God, for John’s Gospel remarks:
He that despiseth you, despiseth me.31
My advice to the rich when arranging revels
Is to soothe your souls with the song of such minstrels,
To put a pauper in the place of the fool,
445 To listen to a lesson on the suffering of our Lord
And to forgo flattery and hear on the fiddle
The story of Good Friday, and be safe from Satan
With the banter of a blind man or bed-ridden woman
Who will praise you and pray to our Lord for your pardon!
450 These minstrels of need will make a man merry,
And do him great comfort at the day of his death
If he loved to listen to them during his life.
They will solace his soul with the certain hope
That soon he will sit in the midst of the saints.
455 But the filthy words of flatterers and fools
Are Lucifer’s song that leads to sorrow
And a feast of turpitude, torture and torment.
Thus the Active Man Haukin had soiled his outfit,
And Conscience inquired in a courteous manner
460 Why it was not washed or wiped or brushed.
1Luke x 7.
2Source unknown.
3Matthew iii 2.
4Psalms xxx 10 and l (=50) 1 (KJV Psalms xxxi 9 and li 1).
5Psalm xxxi 1–2 and 5 (KJV Psalm xxxii 1–2 and 5).
6Psalm xxxi 6 (KJV Psalm xxxii 6).
7Psalm l (=50) 19 (KJV Psalm li 17).
8Isaiah v 11.
92 Corinthians xi 24–27.
102 Corinthians xi 26.
11In the original, Langland conveys the whole warning in Latin so that only scholars will understand it.
12The Apocalypse of Gluttons was a parody on the Revelation of Saint John written by Walter Mapes. Saint Avery (“Avereys” in the original) does not exist. The name looks rather like “Averroes,” the twelfth-century Muslim scholar, but it may also refer to Saint Aurea or Saint Advisa. The original one line is here expanded into two.
13Matthew v 19.
14Matthew xxii 37 and Psalm xiv 1 (KJV Psalm xv 1): “Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle?”
15A proverb cited also by John Bromyard (Warner, The Myth of Piers Plowman, 66).
16The Paschal words are those of Easter week, embodying charity and love. The mid-point of the lunar cycle determines the date of Easter, and the reading for the Wednesday calls for faith and repentance, qualities also required to do well. As for Easter Saturday, Skeat argues that it marked the end of the first week after the Creation and acquired new significance at Easter. The explanatory line 153 has been added.
171 John iv 18.
18Cf. Mark xiv 3.
19Cf. Luke xix 8.
20Cf. Luke xxi 2.
21Mark xvi 17–18.
22Acts iii 6.
23This is the Stratford a few miles east of the city of London.
24Galatians i 10 and Matthew vi 24.
25Psalms x (“according to the Hebrews”) 7 and lvi 4 (KJV Psalms x 7 and lvii 4).
26These were probably known people. Southwark and Shoreditch had dubious reputations, being outside the city of London and therefore free from rigorous oversight.
27Matthew vi 21.
28Luke vi 25.
29Not a quotation but a legal principle.
30Psalm c 7 (KJV Psalm ci 7: “He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight.”)
31Not John but Luke x 16.
Step XIV
In which Conscience tells Haukin how to keep clean through true belief and penitence. Patience explains the many advantages of poverty, which can overcome sin, and how the rich, who have their heaven on earth, can still be saved through charity. Haukin begs for mercy, and I awake, finding myself in London. Reason upbraids me for the idleness of my lif
e there.
“I possess but a single coat,” Haukin said,
“So its soiling is simple: I sleep in it too.
My spouse has her say, and my servants and children—
I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come—1
And they sometimes besmirch it despite my rebukes!
5 It’s been washed all the while, in Lent as well,
With the soap of sickness that soaks right in,
And with loss of possessions, yet still I don’t say
That God is to blame or good folk are guilty.
“I’ve been pardoned by a priest, who imposed for my sins
10 A penance of patience and feeding the poor
To keep it clean and remain a Christian.
Yet I could not keep it clean for an hour
But soiled it with something that I saw or I said,
Either words or works or the will of my heart,
15 And I dirtied it wickedly from dawn to dusk.”
“I shall teach you contrition,” Conscience retorted,
“Which will claw from your coat all kinds of filth:
Contrition of heart.
Then Do-well shall douse it in due confession:
Confession of mouth.
And Do-better shall pull it to pieces and pound it
20 And dye it again with good will and grace,
And Do-best shall darn it and sew it with deeds:
Satisfaction of deed.2
No lice or moths shall then lurk to mar it,
Nor the devil nor false men foul it henceforth.
Behave as I say and no herald or harpist
25 Shall have finer clothes than the Active Man Haukin,
No minstrel more praise from both powerful and poor
Than Haukin the Active, the waferer, shall have.”
“I shall furnish you with dough even during a drought,
And the flour that is finest for souls,” Patience said,
30 “Though grain has not grown, nor grapes on the vine.
I shall find the food for all beings that breathe,
And I never shall fail to have enough for their needs.
For we should not fret where our food comes from:
Be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat; Behold the birds of the air: your heavenly Father feedeth them; The patient shall conquer.”3
Haukin laughed a little and said, “By our Lord,
35 To be pampered by you wouldn’t promise much pleasure!”
“Not so,” said Patience, and he pulled from his pocket
Victuals that can feed many forms of life,
Saying, “Faithful belief can provide a feast!
For life is not sent but there’s sustenance besides,
40 Purveying the food wherefrom to live:
For the wild worm first that feeds beneath fields,
For the fish in the flood and the cricket in fire,
For the clean-fleshed curlew in country air,4
And for creatures that graze on grass, roots and grain.
45 And people can likewise live from belief
And love alone, as God relates:
Whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do, and
Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.”5
I surveyed the food that Patience invoked
And found Thy will be done from the Our Father.
“Eat this, Haukin, when you’re hungry,” said Patience,
50 “When you’re cringing with cold or crying with thirst.
Fetters shall not hurt you nor the anger of the haughty,
Nor prison nor pain, for The patient shall conquer.
So be sober of sight and sober in speech,
In your senses, your diet and the deeds that you do.
55 Then die without dread as God ordained,
From hunger or heat as God will have it,
Without care for your clothes, or corn or drink.
If you live by his law, the less life-time the better:
To love Christ well is to loathe the world.6
60 “His breath made the beasts that wander abroad:
He commanded, and they were created.7
His breath therefore moves both men and beasts,
As Scripture describes when the grace is said:
Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature.8
For forty years folk survived without tilling
And drank from the spring that sprang from the stone.
65 The heavens were locked in the age of Elijah:
No rain arrived, yet we read in books
That the people prospered for years without plowing:
The Seven Sleepers for seven hundred years
Survived without food and finally awoke,9
70 And if men would live well-measured lives,
As Christ says, no Christian would have cause to starve.
For dearth among Christians is occasioned by unkindness.
Over-plenty makes poor and rich alike proud,
And no price is too steep to pay for restraint,
75 For the misery amongst the men of Sodom
Came from too much bread and too much torpor:
Idleness and abundance of bread nourished the vilest sin.10
They over-ate and they over-drank
And they sinned to Satan’s satisfaction,
So that vengeance befell them for their vile performance
80 And they sank into hell, those cities of sin.11
“So we should be restrained and sheltered by faith,
For as Conscience could tell you, contrition that’s true
Ensures that our sins are venial sins.
It can save even sinners who decide to stay silent
85 And bring them to bliss if their faith confirms
They believed when alive in the lore of the Church.
Even failing confession, faith is still Do-well
When tied to conscience and true contrition,
But contrition with confession is far more effective,
90 Destroying and slaying even deadly sin,
While contrition only tempers the tenor of that sin.
As the psalmist says, you should speak to a priest:
Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven.12
Satisfaction goes furthest by finding the root
Of the deadly sin and excising it so
95 That the wound is healed and the hurt is away.”13
“H
ow about Charity?” said Haukin. “I’m hanged
If I’ve spoken to a soul who’s ever seen him.”
“Perfect truth, patient tongue and poor heart are the home
Of Charity,” said Patience, “God’s chamberlain of choice.”
100 “Is patient poverty more pleasing to God
Than wealth spent well?” Haukin wondered.
“Point to that man and we’ll praise him,” said Patience.14
“We could argue for ever and ever about wealth,
But I’ve met no one rich at the moment when it mattered
105 Who did not dread his death and then die
Immersed in the deepest, direful debt,
While the poor may plead by pure common sense
For allowance from the Lord and may claim in law
From the judge who is just the joy they never had,
110 Saying, ‘To birds and beasts which know no bliss
And to sylvan snakes which must suffer in winter
And are tempted by hunger to be timid and tame,
You send the summer as their sovereign joy
And a welcome reward for both wild and tame.’
115 Thus beggars like beasts may await a boon
Since they’ve lived their lives in lasting want
And Nature must surely insist they are sent
Some ease by God on earth or in heaven
For to have no joy at all is abhorrent.
120 “Angels in hell once had their joy,
Like Dives who dallied with la dolce vita,15
And we recognize surely that the rich have relished
A life of luxury along with their women.
But it’s greatly disturbing that God can grant
125 So much before it is merited to many.
It seems a shame that the rich are spoilt
For they have their heaven here on earth
And the leisure to live without bodily labor
Yet are disallowed when they die, says King David:
They have slept their sleep; and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands, and
As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.16
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