Piers Plowman
Page 31
While his Father’s divinity will fend off all harm.”
“Who will joust against Jesus? The Jews or the Scribes?”
“The devil,” said Faith, “for he’s falsely condemned.
But though Death may claim to undo and bring down
30 All live things living on land and in water,
Life says he lies, and will wager his life
That Death will not daunt him, and within three days
He will free Piers’ fruit from the devil’s fastness
And release them where he likes, setting Lucifer in chains
35 And defeating and vanquishing affliction and Death:
O death, I will be thy death.”2
Pilate came with a crowd to sit in his courtroom,
To determine by trial whether Death would triumph.
The Jews and the judges were all against Jesus,
And the cry of “Crucify!” filled the courtroom.
40 They put him in a pillory before Pilate and said,
“This Jesus joked about our temple of the Jews,
Pretending he could topple it—there the mocker stands!—
And in three days’ time he undertook once more
To rebuild every brick as beautiful as before,
45 As high and as wide, in all aspects equal.”
A sergeant cried, “Crucify! He’s a sorcerer, I swear!”
“Take him!” cried another, and took some sharp thorns
And criss-crossed them quickly, producing a crown
Which he set on his head, and he said with envy,
50 “Hail to the Rabbi!” Then they hit him with a reed,3
They nailed him naked to the cross with three nails,
And put up poison on a pole to his lips,
And told him to drink for his days were done.4
“If you’re so skillful,” they said, “save yourself.
55 Escape from the cross if you’re Christ, the King’s son.
Then we’ll let you live and believe Life loves you.”
“It is finished,” Christ said, and he slumped and swooned,
As piteous and pale as a prisoner dying.
The Lord of Life and of Light closed his eyes,
60 And the daylight withdrew and the sun grew dark.
The Temple wall tore, the whole world trembled
And the dead were roused by the din and arose
And told why the tempest still thundered and roared.
“There’s a bitter battle,” the dead bodies proclaimed,
65 “In enduring darkness between Life and Death,
And no one will truly tell who’s triumphed
Till sunrise on Sunday,” and they sank to their graves.
Then some said the corpse was the Christ, God’s Son,
Indeed this was the Son of God,5
And some, he was a sorcerer: “So look and see
70 If he’s dead or alive before lifting him down.”
Two thieves suffered death at that same time
In accordance with the law, crucified with Christ.
A bailiff soon broke the legs of both
And afterwards their arms to hasten their death,
75 But no beggar was so bold as to touch God’s body,
For they knew as from Nature that he was a knight
And the son of a king, and they stood to one side.
But near him was a knight by the name of Longinus,
Standing by Pilate and the people with his spear.
80 He had long lost his sight, so Scripture says,6
Yet despite his demurrals was made by the men
To joust and to jab at Jesus with his spear,
For the others on horseback and on foot were afraid
To touch or disturb him or take him from the cross.
85 When this sightless stripling struck him through the heart
He was bathed in Christ’s blood, which unbarred his eyes,
And he groveled on the ground to seek forgiveness:
“I have wounded you woefully, Lord, against my will!”
He sighed and wept for sorrow and said,
90 “I beg your indulgence for the deed I have done.
Make a gesture of mercy, gentle Jesus.”
Then Faith began fiercely to revile the Jews,
Calling them criminal and accursed for ever
For their foul unbelief. “May vengeance befall you!
95 It was base to oblige a blind man to spear
A body that was bound, and ignoble to abuse
A dead cadaver by day or by night.
Yet the wickedly wounded Christ is the winner,
For your champion challenger, your jouster in chief,
100 Fell at Christ’s feet and confessed him the victor.
When the darkness was done, Death was then vanquished,
And you lubberly villains lost out to Life.
The freedom you valued has faded to thralldom,
And you and your children shall be churls with no chance
105 Of tilling or attaining a title to land
But shamefully living by usurious lending,
A life that the Lord has condemned in all laws.
Your good days are done, as Daniel predicted,
Your supremacy supplanted by the Kingdom of Christ:
When the holy of holies shall come, ye shall cease to be anointed.”7
110 From these frightening events and the falseness of the Jews
I withdrew in the darkness to the depths of hell,
And saw there, I swear— according to Scripture—
A young woman, as I thought, walking my way
From out of the west, with her eyes set on hell,
115 A meek young maid, whose name was Mercy,
Well-meaning and modest in demeanor and speech.
Then her sister, as it seemed, came softly toward her
Out of the east with her eyes looking west,
Devoid of fear on account of her virtue,
120 A comely creature who was called the name Truth.
When the maidens met, Mercy and Truth,
They asked each other what the happenings meant,
The lustrous light that lay before hell,
The din and the darkness, and what dawn might bring.
125 “In faith I’m astonished at these sights,” Truth said,
“And I must discover what this magic means.”
“It means,” said Mercy, “not magic but joy.
For a maiden called Mary is a mother who conceived
Not from mortal seed but a sentence that was spoken
130 By the Holy Ghost through the gift
of grace,
And gave birth to a baby while free from blemish;
God will attest to the truth of my tale.
The baby was born some thirty years back,
And today at mid-day he was put to death,
135 Causing this eclipse that has closed off the sun.
And from darkness man shall be manumitted
While Lucifer is blinded by the lustrous light,
For patriarchs and prophets have often preached
That a man shall save man through a maiden’s help,
140 That a tree shall retrieve what a tree once lost,8
That a death shall restore what Death has undone.”
But Truth said, “You’re talking total nonsense!
For Adam and Eve and Abraham and others,
And patriarchs and prophets who are lying in pain,
145 Will never be released, brought aloft by this light,
But must huddle in hell. So hold your tongue, Mercy!
My name is Truth and I’m telling the truth,
Which is once you’re in hell, you’re always in hell.
The prophet and patriarch Job provides proof:
He that shall go down to hell shall not come up.”9
150 Then Mercy mildly opened her mouth.
“I hope,” she said, “that they shall be saved,
For reason and experience show poison kills poison.
The scorpion’s venom is the foulest and fiercest,
No remedy assuages the scorpion’s sting
155 Till the scorpion perishes and its poison is applied
To the place where the venom was first suffused.
So I dare pledge my life that this death will undo
What Death first did through the devil’s enticements.
And as man was beguiled into guilt by guile,
160 So the grace which began the world will make good
And will exercise art to deceive more art.”10
“Stop there,” Truth said, “for I seem to see,
From the frozen north, not far off, the figure
Of Justice come running; I suggest we rest
165 For she’s wiser and older than either of us.”
“That is so,” Mercy said, “and I see in the south
Peace coming playfully, dressed in patience.
For a long time Love has longed to see her
And has sent her a letter concerning the light
170 That hovers over hell; let us hear what she says.”
When Peace clad in patience approached the two,
Justice showed the reverence right for such robes
And asked where she was going and whom she hoped
To encounter in such elegant, becoming clothes.
175 “My wish,” said Peace, “is to welcome most warmly
Those sullied with sin whom I could not see
For many a month; but now Mercy shall free
Both Adam and Eve and Moses and more,
And I’ll dance with delight; so dance, Sister, too,
180 For Jesus has jousted, and joy has now dawned:
In the evening weeping shall have place, and in the morning gladness.11
And Love, who’s my lover, has sent me a letter
Saying man shall be saved by Mercy and me,
And that God’s forgiveness has granted us two,
Both Peace and Mercy, as permanent pledges.
185 Here’s the patent,” cried Peace, “which will prove to endure:
In peace in the self same I will sleep, and I will rest.”12
“Are you off your head?” Justice asked, “Or just drunk?
You believe that this light can unlock hell’s might
And save men’s souls? Sister, that’s absurd!
In the beginning it was God and no other who gave
190 The sentence that Adam and Eve and their descendants
Should die and be done with and dwell in torment
If they touched the tree and tasted its fruit.
And Adam defied that awful order
And ate the fruit, foolishly flouting
195 The love of our Lord and the law he laid down,
By doing the dictates of Eve and the devil.
I, Justice, judge that Truth ruled justly
That their pain be perpetual and no prayer be of help.
They must chew as they chose, so let us not chafe
200 At the endless evil they bit off and ate.”
“Yet I pray,” said Peace, “that their pain may end,
And their misery turn to merriment in time.
Then knowing of misery, they’ll know they are merry.
For happiness means nothing without knowledge of none:
205 No one knows hunger who has never been hungry,
If there were no night, then no one would know
The meaning of day, and no misery would mock
At the wealthy who wallow in waste at their ease
If they did not know the dread of death,
210 And I’m sure that until we suffer from shortage
We never can know the meaning of enough.
For God in his goodness had given to Adam
The things he needed for entire contentment,
But allowed him subsequently sorrow and sin,
215 To learn the nature of delights he had lost.
“Now with good will God, who began the world,
Has become a man through a maid to save men,
And accepted betrayal to suffer death’s sorrow,
Healing our heartache and heralding rest.13
220 For God himself has assumed Adam’s shape
To grasp the grief that a man undergoes.
In heaven and on earth and now in hell,
Well aware of joy he wants to know woe
So that folk too will see from their folly and sin
225 Both the essence of anguish and endless bliss.
Where peace is present, who appreciates war,
Who can tell he’s content till he’s taught by distress?”
A figure then entered with outsized eyes,
Venerable and vigorous, who bore the name Book.
230 “God’s body,” said Book, “I bear good witness
That there blazed such a star when the babe was born
That the wise men of the world all were as one
That the baby who was born in Bethlehem town
Would save men’s souls and destroy all sin.
235 And all the four elements echoed the message14
That he was God, whose hand made the heavens.
A comet was kindled by the upper air,
Like a torch to hail his advent on earth,
And its light alighted on the Lord below.
240 The water then witnessed by letting him walk:
The Apostle Peter saw him approaching
Across the sea and called to him, saying,
Bid me come to thee upon the water.15
The sun has now shut off her shining fire
At the sorrow of the maker of the sun and the sea,
245 And the earth has quaked and cracked open chasms
Like something alive on seeing him suffer!
“His suffering has opened hell itself,
And has let out the sons of Simeon to see it.16
Now Lucifer shall believe, though little he may long to,
250 For Jesus the giant has fashioned a device
To batter and break those who bar his way.17
May I, Book, be burnt if Jesus does not bring
Joy to his mother as a man once more,
And comfort to his kin when he comes back to life.
255 He will cast down and crush the joy of the Jews,
Who are lost unless they believe the New Law
And rightly reverence his cross and resurrection!”
“Let us stop,” Truth said, “for I see and hear
A spirit who is speaking to hell and saying,
‘Lift up your gates, O ye princes.’”18
260 To Lucifer a loud voice cried from the light,
“Princes of this place, unbar the portal.
Here comes with his crown the King of Glory!”
Then looking at Lucifer in alarm, Satan said,
“Such a light freed Lazarus without our leave,
265 So we’re bound to face trouble and terrible tumult.
If this King should come he’ll unleash the whole crowd
And lead them to Lazarus and lock me in chains.
Patriarchs and prophets have promised for years
That a lord and a light will lead mankind hence.
“So Ragamuffin, bring me the bars that Belial,19
Your grandfather, molded and made with your mother.
I’ll cut off this lord and quell his light,
And will bar the gates before brightness blinds us.