These four were to follow and to teach the faith
And they had in a handshake harrowed all Scripture
With the harrows they had, the Old and the New,
The Testaments entrusted to them by Grace,
275 Who carefully conferred the Cardinal Virtues,
Four seeds for Piers to sow in men’s souls.
The seed first sown was the Spirit of Prudence,
And any who ate it would foresee the outcome
Of the deeds that they did before they did them:
280 Look that you buy a long-handled ladle
To catch and cream off the fat from a cauldron.
The Spirit of Temperance was second to be sown,
And whoever ate it would have such a nature
As not to be swollen by sickness or sweetmeats
285 Or indulgence in drink, or be driven off course
By scorn or scolding or sudden wealth
Or idle insults or even by filth;
No fancy fashions would adorn his frame,
And no cook would serve him spicy suppers.
290 The Spirit of Fortitude followed in sequence,
And any who ate it would have the resolve
To suffer the sickness and trouble God sent.
No lying or liars or loss of possessions
Would dispirit or depress him for his soul would be smiling,
295 Possessing the strength to pray with patience
“Preserve me, O Lord,” to resist false smears15
And to follow with courage the counsel of Cato:
Be strong in the soul when unjustly slandered.16
The seed last sown was the Spirit of Justice.
300 Whoever ate it would always be loyal
To God and be sorrowed solely by deceit,
For deceit and guile are so subtle and secret
That honesty can often be judged unjust.
But the Spirit of Justice will steadfastly sentence
305 Convicts to death and condemn a king
Who commits a crime, for the courts ignore
All royal wrath and death threats from rulers,
And presents and pleas and letters from princes.
It finds from facts without fear or favor,
310 With equity for all, to the ends of its power.
Piers sowed these four seeds and harrowed them staunchly
With Old and New Law to allow growth of love
Among the four virtues and to force out the vices.
For commonly rest-harrow ruins the crops,
315 A weed that grows together with grain,
Just as vices invade and vitiate virtues.
“The clever keep to the Cardinal Virtues
And till,” Piers told me, “as the four doctors teach.”
“You ought now to build a house for your harvest,
320 Or your grain will have grown and be ripe,” said Grace.
“Before you go, by God, you must give me
Some timber,” said Piers, “and a plan for the place.”
Grace cast down the cross with the crown of thorns
That Christ bore on Calvary, loving mankind,
325 And he mixed a mortar that was known as Mercy
With the blood of baptism bled on the cross.
He fashioned a foundation that was firm and was fenced
With wattles of pain and walls of Passion,
And he roofed the house with Holy Writ,
330 A Church of Unity chartered and achieved.17
When the venture was finished, Grace then devised
A cart called Christendom to carry Piers’ sheaves,
With the trusty Contrition and Confession in the traces
And priests to steer them, and he set off himself
335 To plow truth with Piers in the wider world,
And to lay down belief and Holy Church law.
But Pride caught sight of Piers as he was plowing
And gathered together a gang to attack
All Christians and Conscience and Cardinal Virtues,
340 To batter them, break them and bite at their roots.
He sent out Presumption, his sergeant-at-arms,
And his slanderous spy called Spreader-of-rumors.
These two came to Conscience, accosted Christians
And told them, “We’ll tear up and toss out the seeds,
345 The vital virtues that Piers has fostered;
We’ll break up Unity and beat down his barn,
And we’ll cast out Conscience and the cart of belief,
And Confession and Contrition that tug the contraption.
We’ll cover the cart and the horses in the color
350 Of sophistry so that Conscience can’t see
From contrite confession who’s Christian, who’s false,
And no merchant who deals in money can measure
What profit is right or wrong or outrageous.”
Pride entered equipped in those colors of cant,
355 With a lecherous lord who lived by lust.
“We’ll live with such luxury and license,” said Pride,
“That the world will at once go completely to waste.”
Then Conscience told Christians, “My counsel is to hurry
And gather together in Unity for good,
360 And to pray for peace in Piers’ own barn,
For I’m certain we haven’t the strength to resist
Unless guided by Grace when we go against Pride.
Then Native Wit came to counsel Conscience
And clamorously called on all Christian folk
365 To dig around Unity a ditch that was deep,
To surround the Church with a ring of ramparts.
So Conscience proclaimed that all Christians should help
To construct a massive and mighty moat
To defend the Church, reinforcing her fighters.
370 All Christians repented, prostitutes apart,
Rejecting sin with that sole exception,
Not to speak of summoners and sworn jurors
Who were wittingly and willingly wedded to lies
And purposely perjured for pots of silver.
375 But save for such scoundrels, all sensible Christians
Who had their five wits hastened to help
To build up Unity bit by bit,
Some by pilgrimage and some by prayer,
Others by penance or dispensing alms,
380 And they wept for their sins, the water welling
And pouring in plenty from their penitent eyes.
And the purity of the people, and the priests’ pure lives
Held up the ho
me of the Holy Church.
“Now Pride can come; I don’t care,” said Conscience.
385 “The Lord of Lust shall be barred this Lent,
So come to the table, all Christian creatures
Who have labored so loyally this Lent and dine.
We have God’s body in the bread that is blessed,
For Grace has given through the word of God
390 The power to Piers to bake the bread
And to heal and to help all those who eat it
Once every month or more if they want,
If they’ve paid their debts to Piers for his pardon.”
“What?” said the people. “You propose that we pay
395 Everything we owe before eating the bread?”
“My counsel,” said Conscience, “and a Cardinal Virtue,
Is to follow the advice in the prayer Our Father—
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us—
And to seek to be absolved before receiving Communion.”
“Yeah, bah!” cried a brewer, “I’m blowed if I’m ruled
400 By Justice, by Jesus, for all of your jabber,
Or Conscience, by Christ. If I clear a profit
From dregs and draff both drawn from one tap,
Both thick ale and thin, then that’s what I’ll do,
Not hanker for holiness. Conscience, go hang!
405 And the Spirit of Justice is just so much spittle!”
“You criminal,” said Conscience, “you cursed wretch!
You’re hopelessly lost unless God helps you
And you strictly stand by the Spirit of Justice,
The paramount seed that Piers has sown.
410 You must feed on Conscience and the Cardinal Virtues,
Or you’re lost, believe me, both life and soul.”
“Then plenty are lost,” said a poor-looking priest.
As long as I’ve lived I’ve never lighted
On a fellow who could fathom the Cardinal Virtues
415 Or fancied that Conscience counted for a feather.
The cardinals I’ve encountered all come from the Pope,
And we priests must pay for their food when they visit,
For their rascally followers, their finery and fodder.
The people complain to each other, deploring
420 The curse on the country when a cardinal comes,
And the lechery that’s rife where he lingers the longest.
And so,” the priest said, “I sincerely wish
That no cardinals would come to visit common folk
But would stay in their sanctuaries, in Avignon say,
425 And be ‘saints among saints,’ consorting with Jews,
Or in Rome with their relics, as required by their Rule.18
And Conscience, you should keep to the court of the King;
Let your golden boy Grace give guidance to us priests
And make Piers our prince with his plows Old and New.
430 Make him emperor of everywhere, and everyone a Christian!
“For the Pope is not proper; he ought to support
The people but sends men to slay them instead,
While Piers the Plowman does his plowing for God,
Whose gentle rain falls on the just and unjust.19
435 He has sent us the sun to shine on the cursed
As brightly as it beams on the fields of the best,
And Piers the Plowman takes pains to plow
For wenches in brothels and wastrels as well
As himself and his servants—though he’s first to be served—
440 But he none the less toils and tills for traitors
As hard as for honest and honorable folk.
Let us worship the God who made wicked and good
And suffers poor sinners who will some time repent.
May he put right the Pope, who plunders the Church
445 While claiming to be guardian of Christians and kings,
Paying salaries to soldiers who shed Christian blood,
Killing and robbing countless Christians,
Glossing over the Old Law and ignoring the New:
Thou shalt not kill, and Vengeance belongeth to me.20
As long as he satisfies his scurrilous self,
450 He gives not a hang for anyone else.
“And may Christ save the cardinals out of his kindness
And send them some wisdom and salvage their souls!
For the common folk care,” the priest said, “not a scrap
For advice from Conscience and the Cardinal Virtues
455 Except when they sense there’s something to be gained,
For they see nothing suspect in deception and lies.
The Spirit of Prudence they assume means deceit,
And they find the virtues to be vices instead.
Everyone subtly distorts their own sin
460 And presents it as shrewdness or spotless living.”
Then a lord burst out laughing. “By this light,” he exclaimed,
“I reckon it’s righteous and right for my agent
To seize what my steward and accountant state
In the clerical records and accounts that they keep.
465 With the Spirit of Intelligence they search through the scrolls;
With the Spirit of Fortitude they ferret out the funds.”
A king then came and swore by his crown,
“I am crowned a king to govern the commons
And defend the Church and its folk from its foes,
470 And the law allows me to seize what I lack
From whoever has it since I’m head of the law
And the people are its limbs on a level below.
Yet being their head I look after their health
As chief of the commons and I champion the Church
475 And I take from them both entirely by the terms
Of the Spirit of Justice since I sit as their judge.
I may eat sacred bread for I only borrow
Or confiscate what the crown requires.”
“Provided,” said Conscience, “you faithfully defend
480 Your realm and you rule both by truth and by reason
And you take what the law entitles you to:
All things are yours to protect, not to take!”21
With a hearty farewell the priest headed for home,
And I woke and set down the scenes I had seen.
1In Skeat, lines 56–59 are only found in the C version.
2“Christ” comes from a Greek word meaning “anointed.” Conquerors are anointed when they are crowned.
3Luke ii 14.
4Philippians ii 10 (KJV: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things
in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.”)
51 Kings (KJV 1 Samuel) xviii 7.
6Luke xxiv 46.
7The Apostle Thomas is said to have founded a Church in south India.
8John xx 28. Langland simplifies the story of Thomas.
9John xx 29.
10The Paraclete is the consoling Holy Spirit. See Acts ii 1–4.
11The hymn dating from around AD 800 and attributed to Rabanus Maurus which is sung at Pentecost and on other occasions when the Holy Spirit is invoked.
12The coming of Antichrist at the end of time is foretold in 1 John ii 18 and 22. See also the Apocalypse (KJV Revelation).
131 Corinthians xii 4.
14i.e., the “four doctors.” See Step IX, Note 12.
15Psalm xv 1 (KJV Psalm xvi 1).
16Dionysius Cato, Distich ii 14.
17Unity refers to the mystical unity of the body of the Church, as described in Ephesians iv 1–16 (Schmidt parallel-text edition Vol. II, 710). Ephesians iv 16 reads: “the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth.”
18The Pope resided in Avignon between 1309 and 1376, after which rival popes sat in Avignon and Rome for a further forty years.
19Cf. Matthew v 45.
20Exodus xx 13 (the sixth of the Ten Commandments) and Hebrews x 30.
21Presumably a familiar legal maxim.
Step XX
In which I meet Need, who argues the supremacy of bodily needs over even the Cardinal Virtues, as long as Temperance is observed. I sleep again and in my last dream see the coming of Antichrist with the Seven Deadly Sins. Nature, Old Age and Death join the fray, brushing against me too, but despite the efforts of Conscience, a false friar is admitted to the Church of Unity, undermining Contrition. Conscience goes to seek the help of Piers, and I awake.
Then having woken I went on my way
With an unhappy heart that was ailing and heavy,
Worrying where to find any food.
It was nearly high noon when I came upon Need,
5 Who greeted me gracelessly and called me a clod.
“Why could you not find an excuse like that king
For seizing essential sustenance and clothes?
The Spirit of Temperance teaches us to take
The items cried out for by urgent Need,
10 Who does not believe in the law or in debt
Piers Plowman Page 34
