Page images
PDF
EPUB

Nor rain rain on such a one,
Nor upon such shine the sun.
None is fairer than he was;
He was bright as the glass,
As the flower he was white,
Red as rose his color bright.
Within no kingdom great
Could be found his mate.
Twelve companions had he
That ever with him led he;
Each was a noble's son,
And each was a fitting one
To share in his playing.
Two loved he beyond saying;

The one was called Hathulf child,
And the other Fikenild.
Athulf was the best
And Fikenild the worst.

It was upon a summer's day,
As I to you the story say,
Murry the noble king
Rode in his pleasuring
By the water-side,

As he was wont to ride.

He found by the strand there,
Arrived in his land there,
Ships fifteen all told

Of Saracens full bold.

He asked them what they sought
Or else to land brought.

A pagan there beside

At once to him replied:
"All thy people we shall slay

And all who hold with Christ this day,
And thyself without delay;
Hence shalt thou not go away."

The king sprang from his steed then,
For surely he had need then,
And with him true knights two
Of men he had too few.
Swords in hand they took
And together struck.

They smote so under shield
That some fell in the field.
The king had all too few
Against this evil crew.
So many might easily
Put to death these three.
The pagans came to land
And seized it in their hand.
The people they did kill
And churches spoil at will.

There none alive might go,
Kinsman no more than foe,
But who his faith forsook
And that of pagan took.
Of all earthly women
Saddest was Godhild then.
For Murry wept she sore
And for Horn yet more.
She went out of the hall,
Leaving her maidens all.
Under a rock of stone
There lived she all alone.
To serve God was she glad,
Though the pagans it forbade;
And there she served Christ too,
And naught the pagans knew.
Ever she prayed for Horn Child
That Jesus Christ be to him mild.
Horn was in pagans' hand
With his fellows of the land.
Beauty great had he,

As Christ would have it be.
The pagans wished to slay him
Or else alive to flay him.
Had he not been so fair,

The children all had perished there.
An admiral then foretold,

In speaking he was bold: "Horn, valour is in thee, As any man can see;

Thou art now large and strong,

Fair and of body long.

Thou shalt grow ever greater

For seven years or better,
If thou alive may go
And thy comrades also.
If so it should befall,
You would surely slay us all;
Therefore thou must to sea,
Thou and thy company;
To ship now shall you go,
And sink to the ground below;
The sea shall you swallow;
Nor shall remorse us follow,
For if we gave you life,
With sword or else with knife
We all should soon be dead,
And thy sire's death repaid."

They brought the boys to the shore, Wringing their hands full sore.

On shipboard they thrust them,

No longer would they trust them. Oft had Horn suffered woe,

But never worse than he then did know. The sea began a-flowing

And Horn Child a-rowing.

The sea so fast the ship did drive,
No hope the boys had to survive.
They thought without a doubt
Their lives would soon go out,
All the day and all the night
Till there sprang daylight,
Till Horn saw on the strand
Men walking in the land.
"Comrades," said he, "true,
Good news I tell to you.
I hear the birds a-singing
And the grass a-springing.
Let us be glad once more,
Our ship has come to shore."
From the ship they went to land
And set foot upon the strand.
By the water side
They let the ship ride.
Then up spake Child Horn,
In Suddénè he was born:
"Ship, by the sea flood
May thou have days good;
By the sea brink
May thee no water sink.
To Suddénè if thou come,
Greet well my kin at home;
Greet well my mother dear,
Godhild, queen without peer.
And tell the pagan king,
Hateful to Christ in everything,
That I am whole and sound
Landed on this ground;
And say that he shall feel

The blow my hand shall deal."

Aylbrus went from her to the hall,

Where Horn did serve before them all,
To the king upon the bench
Wine his thirst to quench.
"Horn," said he, "my friend,
To bower must thou wend
In secret after meat
Rymenhild to greet.
Speeches very bold
In heart thou shalt hold.
Horn, to me be true,

And ne'er shalt thou it rue."

[blocks in formation]

To bower should I seek
To hear what thou wouldst speak.
Speak and tell to me
Thy will, whatso it be."

Rymenhild up did stand
And took him by the hand.
On couch she set him fine,
To drink his fill of wine;
She gave him welcome true
And arms about him threw;
Full oft she did him kiss,

Her joy was most in this.

"Horn," she said, "without all strife, Thou shalt have me as thy wife. Horn, have of me ruth

And plight to me thy truth."

Horn in his heart did seek

What words he then might speak.

"May Christ," said he, "now guide thee!
And heaven's bliss betide thee
Of thy husband free,
Where'er in land he be!
But I am born too low

Such a woman's love to know.
I come of thralls, God wot;
A foundling's was my lot.
Befits thee not by kind
Thyself to me to bind.
It were no fit wedding

Betwixt a thrall and a king."

Rymenhild was grieved thereby
And sore began to sigh.

Her arms slipped strengthless down,
And there she fell a-swown.

Horn such woe could nowise brook
And in his arms the maiden took

And then he did her kiss,
Full oft and oft, i-wis.
"Sweetheart," said he, "dear,
Thy heart now must thou steer.
Help me become a knight,
Truly, with all thy might,
To my lord, the king,
That he me grant dubbing.
Then shall my thrallhood
Be changed to knighthood,
And I grow greater still,
And do, sweetheart, thy will."

Rymenhild, that sweetest thing,
Wakened then from her swooning.
"Horn," quoth she, "full soon
That shall all be done;
Thou shalt be dubbed a knight
Within this sevennight.
This cup do thou now bear
And this ring so fair,
To Aylbrus bear them both
And bid him keep his oath.
Tell him I him beseech
That he with fairest speech
Upon his knees do fall
Before the king in hall
And pray the king aright
Thee to dub as knight.
With silver and with gold
Shall his reward be told.
Christ him grant good skill
Well to obtain thy will!"

THE VISION OF WILLIAM CON

CERNING PIERS PLOWMAN
THE FIELD FULL OF FOLK

IN a summer season when the sun was softest,

Shrouded in a smock, in shepherd's

clothing,

In the habit of a hermit of unholy living, 1 went through this world to witness wonders.

On a May morning on a Malvern hillside I saw strange sights like scenes of Faerie. I was weary of wandering and went to rest By the bank of a brook in a broad meadow. As I lay and leaned and looked on the

water

I slumbered and slept, so sweetly it murmured.

Then I met with marvelous visions. I was in a wilderness; where, I knew not. I looked up at the East at the high sun, And saw a tower on a toft artfully fashioned.

A deep dale was beneath with a dungeon in it,

And deep ditches and dark, dreadful to see. A fair field full of folk I found between

them,

With all manner of men, the meanest and the richest,

Working and wandering as the world demanded.

Some put them to the plow and practiced hardship

In setting and sowing and seldom had leisure;

They won what wasters consumed in gluttony.

Some practiced pride and quaint behavior, And came disguised in clothes and features. Prayer and penance prevailed with many. For the love of our Lord they lived in strictness,

To have bliss hereafter and heavenly riches.

Hermits and anchorites held to their dwellings,

[blocks in formation]

They feign that they are famished and fight in the ale-house.

God wot, they go in gluttony to their chambers

And rise with ribaldry, like Robert's children.

Sleep and sloth pursue them always. Pilgrims and palmers were plighted together

To seek Saint James and saints in Rome. They went on their way with many wise stories,

And had leave to lie for a lifetime after. I saw some who said that they sought for relics;

In each tale that they told their tongue would always

Speak more than was so, it seemed to my thinking.

A host of hermits with hooked staves Went to Walsingham with their wenches behind them.

These great lubbers and long, who were

loath to labor,

Clothed themselves in copes to be distinguished from others,

And robed themselves as hermits to roam at their leisure.

There I found friars of all the four orders,

Who preached to the people for the profit of their bellies,

And glossed the gospel to their own good pleasure;

They coveted their copes, and construed it to their liking.

Many master-brothers may clothe themselves to their fancy,

For their money and their merchandise multiply together.

Since charity has turned chapman to shrive lords and ladies,

Strange sights have been seen in a few short years.

Unless they and Holychurch hold closer

[blocks in formation]

Said that he himself might assoil all men Of all falsehood in fasting and vows that were broken.

Common folk confided in him and liked his preaching,

And crept up on cowed knees and kissed his pardons.

He abused them with brevets and blinded their eyesight;

His devil's devises drew rings and brooches.

They gave their gold to keep gluttons, And believed in liars and lovers of lechery. If the bishop were blessed and worth both his ears

His seal would not be sent to deceive the people.

But the power of the bishop is not this preacher's license,

For the parish priest and the pardoner share the profits together

Which the poor of the parish would have if these were honest.

Because parishes were poor since the pestilence season,

Parsons and parish priests petitioned the bishops

For a license to leave and live in London And sing there for simony, for silver is

sweet.

Bishops and bachelors, both masters and

doctors,

Who have cures under Christ and are crowned with the tonsure,

In sign of their service to shrive the parish, To pray and preach and give the poor nourishment,

Lodge in London in Lent and the long year after;

Some are counting coins in the king's chamber,

Or in exchequer and chancery challenging

his debts

From wards and wardmotes, waifs and

strays.

Some serve as servants to lords and ladies And sit in the seats of steward and butler. They hear mass and matines, and many of their hours

Are done without devotion. There is danger that at last

Christ in his consistory will curse many.

THE CONFESSION OF SLOTH

THEN Sloth came all beslobbered, with slime on his eyelids;

66

"I must sit," he said, or else I shall slumber.

I cannot stand or stoop, and want a stool for kneeling.

If I were brought to bed, unless my buttocks made me,

No ringing should make me rise till I was ripe for dinner."

He began benedicite with a belch and beat his forehead,

And roared and raved and snored for a conclusion.

"Awake! awake! wretch," cried Repentance, "make ready for shriving." "If I should die to-day I should never do it.

I cannot say pater noster perfectly, as the priest sings it.

I know rhymes of Robin Hood and Randolph Earl of Chester,

But of our Lord or of our Lady I have learned nothing.

I have made forty vows and forgotten them on the morrow.

I never performed the penance as the priest commanded,

Nor was sorry

be.

for my sins as a man should

And if I pray at my beads, unless Wrath bids me,

What I tell with my tongue is two miles from my meaning.

I am occupied each day, on holy days and all days,

With idle tales at ale, or at other times in churches.

Rarely do I remember God's pain and

passion.

I never visit the feeble nor the fettered men in prison.

I had rather hear ribaldry or a summer game of cobblers,

Or lies to laugh at and belie my neighbor, Than all that the four evangelists have ever written.

Vigils and fasting days slip unheeded.

I lie abed in Lent with my lemman beside me,

And when matines and mass are over I go to my friars.

If I reach to ite missa est1 I have done my duty.

Sometimes I am not shriven, unless sickness force me,

More than twice in two years, and then I do it by guess work.

I have been priest and parson for the past thirty winters,

Yet I know neither the scales nor the singing nor the Saints' Legends.

I can find an hare afield or frighten him from his furrow

Better than read beatus vir 2

or beati omnes,3 Construe their clauses and instruct my

parishoners.

I can hold love-days and hear a reve's reckoning,

But I cannot construe a line in the Canons or Decretals.

If I beg or borrow and it be not tallied I forget it as quickly; men can ask me Six times or seven and I will swear to the

falsehood.

So I trouble true men twenty times over. The salary of my servants is seldom even. I answer angrily when the accounts are reckoned,

And my workman's wages are wrath and cursing.

If any man does me a favour or helps me in trouble,

I answer courtesy with unkindness, and cannot understand it.

I have now and I have ever had a hawk's manners.

I am not lured with love where nothing lies in the fingers.

Sixty times I, Sloth, have since for

gotten

The kindness that fellow Christians have granted to me.

Sometimes I spill - in speech or silence Both flesh and fish and many other vict

uals,

Bread and ale, butter, milk and cheeses, All slobbered in my service till they may

serve no man.

1 The concluding words of the mass. 2 Psalms, i or cxii. 3 Psalms, cxxviii.

« PreviousContinue »