LITMIR.BIZ

       C Passus 5; B Passus 5; A Passus 5

      Headnote

      In all three versions of the poem, a new vision begins in passus 5. L displays the materials of the first half of this dream in a different way in each text, however. The C version, which contains a number of large expansions, has three units. In the substantially new passus 5, the dreamer defends himself against Reason and Conscience, and Reason delivers his sermon (which now addresses the dreamer and his quasi-clerical status, as well as the folk in the fair field). In passus 6, the sins confess (except for Sloth, at the head of passus 7); passus 7 also includes Repentance’s speech, the meeting with Piers, and the discussion of pilgrimage.

      In the B version, the sermon and the acts following upon it—confession, an expansion with Repentance’s prayer for God’s absolving mercy, and the penitential pilgrimage—are all treated within a single textual unit. The A version, as usual considerably less developed, splits material between two units: passus 5 has Conscience’s sermon demanding repentance, the confession of Six Deadly Sins (Wrath does not appear in A; see 6.103n), and the initial impulse to pilgrimage; A passus 6 opposes the palmer and Piers.

      In C, this passus opens with a new initiative, the longest sustained waking dialogic encounter in the poem (1–108). This expands upon the more modest efforts already present in B, which correspond to 9.294–352, 10.1–67 (but see 9.293n—C’s second vision is bracketed between these two protracted waking moments), 22.1–52 (see further 1n). Here the youthful dreamer, living with a woman in Cornhill in London, enjoys a life of indolence during a harvest season; in clothing and activity, he resembles “lollares of londone and lewede Ermytes” (3). Yet he simultaneously claims to be distinguishable from such figures, either by his ability to rationally assert the meaning of their activities or by his composition of verses satirizing those actions (see 5n). In the waking interlude, L scrutinizes this ambivalent stance. Two “characters” who are nothing except productions of Will’s own dreaming now appear as if real persons. Reason chastises the dreamer for his “lollare”-like indolence, and eventually Conscience joins Reason in assessing Will’s behavior (see 6n and cf. 9.305n).

      The interrogation shows Will as a figure subjected to two discourses, one civil and one ecclesiastical (Middleton 1990:74), within each of which he may be viewed critically. On the one hand, his nonfeasance exposes him to the strictures of late fourteenth-century labor legislation (particularly the 1388 promulgation of the Statute of Laborers, for which see extensively Middleton 1997): in these terms, he appears merely an able-bodied beggar, thus a parasite and an illicit drain on the community, and not currently occupying any appropriate social position. Many notes below indicate the influence of Statute language; for those addressing the 1388 act in detail, see 7–8n, 22–25n, 29–30n, 35–44n, 36n, 53–60Ln, 89–91n.

      Simultaneously, Will is judged by the standards of the gospels. He is potentially identifiable with the dishonest steward of Luke 16 (see 22–25n), someone who has misspent his lord’s gifts without generating any return on his behalf. This parable—and Luke 16:2—provided the text for Thomas Wimbledon’s famous sermon, preached at St. Paul’s Cross in 1388; however, connections between sermon and poem are particularly attenuated, except in the language discussed at 36n and 43Ln below.

      One might further note the analogy of PLM 3509–3764. This sequence describes the dreamer’s first moment of decision, the point when his pilgrimage route forks. Rather than follow the path of the rural matmaker Labor or Occupation, the dreamer chooses that guarded by Oiseuce, daughter of Peresce (among the most overt of de Deguilleville’s rewritings of The Romance of the Rose). Were he to regain his proper path, the dreamer would have to pass through a hedge of thorns separating the two ways; probably in allusion to a famous episode in the life of St. Benedict, the thorn hedge represents Penitence.

      To these and related charges, Will answers forcefully. He claims a continuing inheritance based on a training he received in his youth, but one no longer clearly in evidence—a claim that, if sustained, would free him from Statute jurisdiction. This is training as some form of cleric, perhaps a self-created but literate (not “lewed”) hermit (cf. 9.140–58n). On this basis, he has not misused his gifts and may indeed claim for himself a role other than dishonest steward (or prodigal son), an apostolic warrant predicated upon gospel injunctions (see 45–52n). From this perspective, Will can rail at Reason for not attending to more serious social disruptions, broadly associable with “simony,” and can claim, albeit through some witty transformations, to fulfill gospel precepts (see 86–88n, 98Ln). His response earns Reason and Conscience’s grudging acceptance; they leave him alone, encouraging him to go to church, where he falls asleep (to create more of his poem).

      In his second dream, Will sees (as he had in the earlier versions) a sermon designed to bring the realm to contrition, delivered by Reason (in A, Conscience). This address, which fills the remainder of the C passus, consists of a series of directives enjoining appropriate behavior on various estates and statūs: laborers, women, husbands and fathers, the clergy (particularly regulars), the king and pope, pilgrims. In C, Reason’s sermon is significantly expanded, for the figure speaks a large section of A 11/B 10 (146–79) originally assigned to the figure Clergy. This material partially answers Will’s earlier outrage at recent social dislocations (notably 76–79), attacks abuses by the regular clergy, and concludes with a prophecy of royal correction. Other additions unique to C address unity, class cohesiveness within the kingdom, and peace throughout Christendom (182–90, 192–96).

      * * *

      1–108 The dreamer’s defense of his life: Among relevant discussions, one should single out Donaldson 1949:199–226, who interprets the passage as if fully autobiographical (a view re-enunciated by Burrow 1981:38–39 and 1993:83–86). Later commentators suggest that this meeting with Reason and Conscience should be viewed within contemporary systems of self-representation; see Kane 1965b:esp. 7–11; Bowers 1986:165–89; and instructive parallels adduced in Thornley 1967.

      Pearsall, following Donaldson 1949:78 etc., sees the passage as as much an “apologia pro vita sua” as a confession—which certainly aligns it with the subsequent portraits of the Seven Deadly Sins; see further 11n. Skeat aptly compares the passage with B 12.16–28, removed in C, since, as Day first suggested (1928:1–2), it has in many ways been subsumed into this expansion (cf. B 12.20 “somwhat me to excuse” and 5n).

Скачать книгу