From wastrels and wantons who maltreat this world,
And to hunt down efficiently the hares and the foxes
30 And boars and bucks that break down my hedges,
And to breed up falcons to bring down the birds
That invade my fields and devour my wheat.”
The knight was complaisant, replying to Piers:
“By my power I pledge and make you a promise
35 To keep to our contract, through combat if needful;
As long as I live I shall loyally guard you.”
“There’s one more point,” said Piers, “if you please.
You should treat your tenants as Truth would wish
And should make your fines both merciful and fair:
40 Let humility have mastery, not the money.
And if poor men proffer you presents and gifts,
You may not merit them so you must not take them.
They may be returnable in twelve months’ time
In perilous Purgatory, that place of pain.
45 And you’d better not abuse your bonded workers;
They may be your underlings on earth, but in heaven
They may be above you in merit and bliss:
Friend, go up higher.2
For you can’t tell a churl in the charnel-house at church,
Or a knight from a knave, as you know in your heart.
50 When you speak, tell the truth and recite only stories
Of wisdom and sense that instruct your workers,
Rejecting the jests of salacious jokers.
Avoid such men, I admonish you, at meals
For vulgar folk are the voice of the devil.”
55 “By Saint James,” the knight said, “I certainly consent.
I’ll obey you as long as my life may last!”
“Then I’ll put on,” said Piers, “a pilgrim’s apparel
And travel on with you until we find Truth.”
And he climbed into leggings to keep out the cold,
60 Part holed and part whole, with mittens for his hands,
And he heaved a haversack over his head.
“Now bring me a bushel of corn for our bread.
I’ll sow it and start very soon after that
On the pilgrimage to beg for pardon like a palmer.
65 And the people who help me to plow and prepare
Shall enjoy the harvest, though others object,
And shall glean the leavings by leave of our Lord.
For I’ll find the food for the faithful and true
Of all types and trades, positions and skills,
70 Save Jack the Juggler and Janet from the Stews,
And Danny the Dice-player, Dot the Madam,
And the fraudulent Friar and the folk in his order,
And Robin the Rhymer with his ribald ballads.
For Truth once told me and instructed me to say:
Let them be blotted out of the book of the living.3
75 They are rightfully shunned and not written with the righteous,
The Church will take no tithes from their tricks,
And they’re fortunate, God help them, to evade a worse fate!”
Piers’ wife was a woman called Work-while-you-may,
His daughter was Do-right-or-do-get-a-beating,
80 And his son was Suffer-your-seniors-to-be-right-
Without-grumbling-or-groaning-or-you-may-regret-it-
Let-God-have-his-way-as-his-word-says-as-well.
“Now I’ll go with these people,” said Piers, “as a pilgrim,
But before I set forth I shall frame a will
85 For I’m old and gray and have goods I must give you.
I make these commands in the Lord’s name, amen:
My soul I present to him who deserves it,
To defend from the devil as I doubt not he’ll do
Till my reckoning is come, as the Creed declares,
90 When my lot, I believe, shall be mercy and love.
And the Church shall keep my carcass in care
For it took a tithe of my corn and my takings,
And I paid up promptly for the peril of my soul,
Expecting the priest to include me in his prayers,
95 With a mention in the Mass when remembering all Christians.
My wife shall have only what I honestly earned
To share as she should with my sons and daughters;
If I die today my debts are all paid
And by bed-time what’s borrowed will be returned.
100 With the little that’s left, by the Cross of Lucca,4
I shall worship Truth while I wait in this world,
And shall be his pilgrim, plowing for the poor,
With my plow as my pikestaff to pare the roots
For my coulter to cleave and cleanse the furrows.”
105 Then Piers and his pilgrims took up the plow,
Many hands thus helping to plow the half-acre.
Diggers and ditchers dug around headlands,
And Piers was pleased, and praised what they did.
More workmen weighed in willingly as well,
110 Each one of them taking and tackling a task
Such as pricking out weeds to the Plowman’s pleasure,
Till Piers stopped plowing at the noon hour for prayer
To see for himself who sweated the hardest,
Thinking to hire them when harvest was at hand.
115 But some were sozzled, sat drinking and singing,
Helping plow the half-acre with “Ho trolli-holli!”
“On peril of my soul,” said Piers, turning puce,
“Unless you leap up and lend me your labor,
You’ll not have a grain that’s been grown in this ground.
120 You can die in a ditch and the devil can take you.”
The scoundrels were scared but said they were blind
Or tried the old trick of pretending to be crippled,
Whining to Piers and pleading for pity:
“For look, we’ve no limbs to labor with, lord,
125 But we’ll pray for you, Piers, and for your plowing,
That God of his grace will increase your grain
To pay for the alms that you offer to us,
But we’re far too sick to sweat and to strain.”
“I’ll soon tell whether you can walk and can see,
130 Though I’m certain, like Truth,” Piers said, “that you’re skivers,
For I’m an old hand, and my errand is to warn him
Of wastrels who harm the workers of this world
And waste what others have won through hard work.
; So Truth will teach you to drive his team,
135 Or your bread will be barley and your drink a brook.
If you’re blind or crippled or kept behind bars,
You shall sup on wheat-bread the same as myself,
Till God in his goodness grants better days.
But if, as Truth wants, you can work for wages,
140 Caring for cattle or shooing them from corn,
Digging or ditching or doing the threshing,
Or spreading the muck or mixing up mortar,
Yet live by lechery and lying and sloth,
You’ll be fortunate not to face God’s vengeance.
145 “My alms will go to feed anchorites and hermits
Who eat no more than a mid-day meal,
And to clothe those with cloisters and churches to keep.
And strolling preachers shall receive bread and soup
If their power to preach is properly given,
150 Since alms should be offered to religious orders,
But Robert the Rover can rove somewhere else.”
Then Wastrel grew wild and walked up to Piers
And furiously flung down his glove for a fight:
A boastful Breton, a braggart who said
155 That Piers could go and piss on his plow.
“Despite you we’ll say and we’ll do as we decide.
We’ll filch your food and your drink if we fancy
And lark about and laugh all we like.”
Piers nodded to the knight, who was standing near him,
160 To guard him as agreed from grievous wretches
And wolfish wastrels who sponge on the world:
“For until they stop taking and contributing nothing,
There’ll never be enough when I’m not there plowing.”
The knight spoke kindly, according to his nature,
165 Warning Wastrel to mend his ways,
“Or you’ll pay a stiff price by the power of my office.”
“I have never worked,” said Wastrel, “and won’t.”
He made light of the law and still less of the knight,
Set Piers and his plow at the price of a pea,
170 And menaced his men if they met once again.
“By my soul, I shall see you are punished,” Piers said,
And he hollered for Hunger, who heard him at once.
“Avenge me on wastrels, those wens on the world,”
Piers said to Hunger, who seized the man’s stomach
175 And wrung the rogue roundly until his eyes ran.
He buffeted the Breton about his fat cheeks
So hard he grew lean as a lantern for life.
He beat all the braggarts till their guts nearly burst,
And if Piers had not proffered a pease loaf to Hunger
180 And begged him to stop they’d have starved and been buried.
“Please leave them alive to eat with the hogs,
Or have bread,” Piers said, “made from beans and from bran.”
Loafers and loungers fled in alarm
And flapped hard with flails from first light till last,
185 Till Hunger relented and left them alone
With the potful of pease that Piers had made.
An army of “hermits” looked hastily for tools,
And cut down their habits to make countrymen’s capes,
And set to with spades and workmanlike shovels,
190 And dug and delved to drive away Hunger.
The bed-ridden and blind were cured by the cartload,
And sprawling beggars sprang up quite sound.
To the hungry, horse-mash was milk and honey,
Many beggars were content with the bean-and-bran bread,
195 And poor men with pease for the pains of their hunger,
Seizing like sparrowhawks on tasks that Piers set.
So Piers felt proud as he put them to work
And provided the food and the wages that were fair.
Then he pitied the people and begged Hunger to depart,
200 To return to his home and his hearth for ever:
“For thanks to your efforts I am even with these idlers.
But give me your advice before you go:
What’s the best thing to do with bothersome beggars
Who are certain to slacken as soon as you’ve gone?
205 It’s only misery that makes them so meek
And willing to work for me, wanting their food.
Yet they’re brothers who were bought by God with his blood,
And Truth once taught me to love all types
And always to help when any are in trouble.
210 So now I would know what needs to be done
To manage them and make them remain at work.”
“Hear me,” said Hunger, “and heed what I say:
The bread of beggars who are fit yet bold
Should only be horse-cake and biscuits for hounds.
215 Fill them with beans, which inflate their bellies,
And if they start whining, warn them to work,
For they’ll sup all the sweeter for deserving the meal.
But such fellows as you find mistreated by fortune
Or sucked dry by swindlers, seek their acquaintance.
220 For Christ’s sake share with them comfort and kindness,
Love and relief, as is natural in law:
Bear ye one another’s burdens.5
All manner of folk that you may some time meet
And are penniless, proffer them part of your wealth.
They may have committed a crime or done malice,
225 But love them and leave the lashes to God.
Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay.6
If you wish to gain the grace of God,
Live by his Gospel and be loved by the lowly:
Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity.”7
“I wouldn’t grieve God for the wealth of the world.
May I do what you say without sinning?” Piers said.
230 “Such behavior is honored in the Bible,” said Hunger.
“In Genesis justly our progenitor says
That bread shall be baked ‘in the sweat of thy brow.’8
For our Lord commanded that you labor for your living,
And Wisdom says the self-same story:
Because of the cold the sluggard would not plow; he shall beg therefore in the summer, and it shall not be given him.9
235 “And Saint Matthew, whose sign is a man, remarks
On the servant whose talent was interred and not traded
And who earned the anger for ever of his master,
Who took back the talent from his torpid servant
And handed it to him who had ten already,
240 Asserting so that the assembly should hear:
‘He who has shall have, and find help in need,
And he who has not shall not then have;
What he thinks he has, I shall take even that.’10
For Native Wit knows that no one should skive,
245 But should lead a life of active labor
Or of contemplation, as Christ decreed.
The psalmist observes in Blessed are they
That the man who lives from his loyal labor
Is blessed by the Bible in body and soul:
Thou shalt eat the labors of thy hands.”11
250 “I pray you, if you practice a modicum of medicine,
Please let me learn it a little,” said Piers,
“For some of my servants and myself as well
Haven’t worked for a week, and our bellies hurt badly.”
“I can see,” Hunger said, “what makes you sick.
255 Your guts will groan if you guzzle too much,
So it would be wise, if you want to get well,
Never to indulge in drink before dinner.
And you ought to eat nothing till Hunger asks you
And sends his sauce for your lips to savor.
260 And save some till supper-time, sit not too long
And stand up before you are sated and stuffed.
Don’t let Sir Surfeit sit at your side,
For he is a liar that likes rich living,
A greedy gourmand who’ll go on regardless.
265 If you eat as I ask I’ll wager my ears
That Sir Physic will have to forfeit his fur
And his gold-tasseled cloak for a good bowl of gruel,
And will find himself forced to abandon his profession
And to learn to live from work on the land.
270 For deceitful physicians are assassins, God help them!
Folk die from their drugs before destiny wills it.”
“By Saint Paul,” said Piers, “these are profitable words!
Live well now, Hunger, be away when you will,
And the Lord reward your enlightening lesson.”
Piers Plowman Page 12
