Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/565

1866.] made to the question of a lady as to what her sex should do:—

Some should sew the sack, quoth Piers,

For shedding of the wheat;

And ye, lovely ladies,

With your long fingers,

That ye have silk and sendal

To sew, when time is,

Chasubles for chaplains,

Churches to honor.

Wives and widows

Wool and flax spinneth;

Make cloth, I counsel you,

And kenneth so your daughters;

The needy and the naked,

Nymeth heed how they lieth,

And casteth them clothes,

For so commanded Truth."

Marriage is an honorable estate, and should be entered into with proper motives, and in a decent and regular manner. It is desirable that most men should marry, for

The wife was made the way

For to help work;

And thus was wedlock wrought

With a mean person,

First by the father's will

And the friends counsel;

And sithens by assent of themselves,

As they two might accord."

This is the essentially worldly way of making marriage arrangements yet practised in some aristocratic circles, but the more democratic and natural way is to reverse the process, and commence with the agreement between the two persons most concerned. Such unequal matches as age and wealth on one side, and youth and desire of wealth on the other, bring about, are sternly reprobated.

It is an uncomely couple,

By Christ! as me thinketh,

To give a young wench

To an old feeble,

Or wedden any widow

For wealth of her goods,

That never shall bairn bear

But if it be in her arms."

Such marriages lead to jealousy, bickerings, and open rupture, disgraceful to husband and wife, and annoying to others. Therefore Piers counsels

"all Christians,

Covet not to be wedded

For covetise of chattels.

Not of kindred rich;

But maidens and maidens

Make you together;

Widows and widowers

Worketh the same;

For no lands, but for love,

Look you be wedded";—

adding the sound bit of spiritual and worldly advice,

"And then get ye the grace of God;

And goods enough, to live with."

The touch of shrewd humor in the last line finds its counterpart in many other passages. Thus, when the dreamer sits down to rest by the wayside, his iteration of the prescribed prayers makes him drowsy:—

So I babbled on my beads;

They brought me asleep."

The Franciscan friars, his especial aversion, get a sly thrust when he says of Charity that

"in a friar's frock

He was founden once;

But it is far ago,

In Saint Francis's time:

In that sect since

Too seldom hath he been found."

When Covetousness has confessed his numerous misdeeds, and is asked if he ever repented and made restitution, he replies,

Yes, once I was harbored

With a heap of chapmen.

I rose when they were at rest

And rifled their males ";—

and on being told that this was no restitution, but another robbery, he replies, with assumed innocence of manner,

I wened rifling were restitution, quoth he,

For I learned never to read on book;

And I ken no French, in faith,

But of the farthest end of Norfolk."

Even the Pope is not exempt from a touch of satire:—

"He prayed the Pope

Have pity on holy Church,

And ere he gave any grace,

Govern first himself."

The prejudice against doctors and lawyers was as strong five hundred years ago as now, judging from Piers Plowman, who says, that

"Murderers are many leeches,

Lord them amend!

They do men die through their drinks

Ere destiny it would."