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The Penn Commentary on Piers Plowman, Volume 4. Traugott Lawler
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Автор произведения Traugott Lawler
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Издательство Ingram
Pearsall 1988 makes it very clear that by this point in the poem—starting, really, with Recklessness—L is no longer thinking of actual poor people the way he was in C.9: “it is now always patient poverty that he writes about—not poverty as a social evil and human indignity, but poverty as a means to the strengthening and purifying of the moral and spiritual life…. The pattern of spiritualised interpretation is now set, and it is recurrently exemplified…. There is no loss of honesty and integrity in the vision, but it is clear that there has been a shift of focus: poverty, from being a great evil, has become a great good; from being a problem to be solved, it has become the solution to the problem.” In Patience’s “great discourse on patient poverty,” “the demonstration is dry, witty, comic, and full of that vitality and specificity that was equally the mark of Langland’s deeply compassionate account of the sufferings of the poor: those sufferings are now the styptic to sin” (1988:182–83). In Lawler 2000:142–46, I relate this matter to the pardon, and argue that the poem moves to the position that to be poor is to do well, and so to be saved.
The passage sets Patience against Actyf. Actyf’s name associates him with the pardon, “Qui bona egerunt ibunt in vitam eternam” (Those who did good deeds will enter into eternal life). Patience has offered a new formula: “patientes vincunt” (the patient [those acted upon, those who suffer] conquer, C.15.137, 156a, B.15.135a, 171a, etc.), where “vincunt” (they conquer) means “ibunt in vitam eternam” (they will enter into eternal life). The present passage perhaps implies a punning version of the original formula: “qui bonis eguerunt ibunt in vitam eternam” (Those who lacked worldly goods will enter into eternal life). However expressed, the idea is the equivalent of the beatitudes about the poor and meek, Matt 5:3,4: the poor own the kingdom of heaven, the meek shall inherit the earth. The winners are not those who do but those who suffer; suffering is an alternative way to heaven; this is a generalizing of Matt 5:10, “Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter iustitiam, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum.” The idea seems expressed in B.14.108–20: everybody gets joy sometime, and those who suffer now will get it later. This new version of the pardon seems based on God’s sense of fairness, so clear in the beatitudes, and again not on what we do but what we have done to us. Alternatively, one could think of the pardon as implicitly saying “qui bona egerunt aut patienter passi sunt ibunt in vitam eternam.”
See Alford, Gloss., s.v. Allow.
279 (B.14.104) “ʒe? quis est ille?” quod pacience; “quik, laudabimus eum!: Cf. Ecclus 31:8–9, “Beatus dives qui inventus est sine macula et qui post aurum non abiit nec speravit in pecunia et thesauris. Quis est hic? Et laudabimus eum, fecit enim mirabilia in vita sua” (Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish and that hath not gone after gold nor put his trust in money nor in treasures. Who is he? And we will praise him, for he hath done wonderful things in his life). The phrase rihtful rychesse and resonablelyche to spene in line 278 (richesse riʒtfulliche wonne and resonably despended B.14.103) is a free translation of verse 8. The phrase Beatus est diues sine macula, a loose memory of the start of verse 8, appears as line 16.359a.
The line in Ecclesiasticus implies that a good rich man is hard to find, but not impossible. Jesus’ words about how hard it is for a rich man to enter heaven (Matt 19:23–24, Mark 10:23–25, Luke 18:24–25) are to the same effect. Patience’s “quik,” however, ironizes the line—“Quick, let’s find him (before he goes bad)”; like the remarks that follow, it stands with Luke 16:13, where this time Jesus is absolute: “You cannot serve God and mammon.”
285–87 (B.14.109–11) by puyr resoun … by þe lawe … of rihtfull iuge: I.e., from the principle (lawe) that God is just, one can reason that everyone eventually deserves a share of joy. But lawe can also mean scripture, for example Psalm 36, which throughout predicts that the rich and powerful will perish, “but the meek shall inherit the land” (verse 11); Psalm 71:4, “He shall save the children of the poor,” 13–14, “He shall save the souls of the poor. He shall redeem their souls from usuries and iniquity, and their name shall be honourable in his sight,” and, again, Luke 6:20–21, “Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh.” This biblical view is the direct opposite of Palamon’s in the Knight’s Tale: “But man after his deeth moot wepe and pleyne,/Though in this world he have care and wo,” CT A1320–21. Aers 2004:128 argues that Patience here forgets “a fallen condition that never was restricted to the wealthy” and that such an “entitlement to salvation is not warranted within orthodox Christian traditions.” No doubt—and yet these biblical texts give Patience all the warrant he needs. Furthermore, at 9.185–87 (B.7.104–6) we are told that patient sufferers have their purgatory on earth, and are pardoned: that’s why they have a right to heaven—Patience is not forgetting anything. Geoffrey Shepherd’s assessment seems wiser: Langland’s “interest in and sympathy for the honourable poor shines constantly and repeatedly through the poem. On this theme his verse often acquires a surge and tender rapture, that sharply articulated concentrated utterance once counted the signal of sincerity in a writer” (1983:174–75).
287–97 (B.14.111–21) Ioye … neuere was ioye yschape: On the idea that heaven is summer, see Tavormina 1994:58–60: she shows that when Jesus says, in Matt 24:32–33 (I paraphrase), “When the fig takes on leaves, you know that summer is nigh, and when you see these signs, you will know that the end of the world is nigh,” this establishes an equivalence between heaven and summer. And Luke’s version, at 21:30–31, is an even clearer basis, she says, because it says, “you know that the kingdom of God is at hand.” She quotes Ambrose on “the coming of the Lord, in which the fruits of the resurrection will be reaped as if in summertime” (58); Gregory: “The Kingdom of God is well compared to summer” (59), and Hugh of Saint-Cher (59–60), who specifically says that those who have summer here will pass into perpetual winter. Cf. the image of the sunny side of heaven—not necessarily summer, but definitely enticing—at 1.114, and see also 1.124–25 and note.
A look at the PL online shows that Gregory’s “Bene autem regnum Dei aestati comparatur” is repeated again and again. To Tavormina’s list can be added the extensive meditation of the Pseudo-Bede on the second line of Psalm 36, “For [the wicked] shall shortly wither away as grass, and as the green herbs shall quickly fall,” PL 93.672. This commentary comes not from Bede’s time but the eleventh or twelfth century; see Gross-Diaz 1996:113–14. See also the Homily for Second Sunday of Advent of Haymo of Halberstadt, PL 118.23. It is based on the passage from Gregory that Tavormina quotes, but fuller. And see Cassiodorus on Psalm 36:2; he says succinctly, “Saeculum enim istud similitudo est hiemis” (This world is like winter) (PL 70.258).
298–300 Angeles … dyues … beggare of helle (B.14.122–23 Aungeles … diues … douce vie: For the bad angels, see 1.104–29 (B.1.105–27, A.1.103–16). They are not a good example of the point, since they could have remained in joy forever. Diues (Luke 16:19–31; see 19.233–54 [B.17.267–73] and note) is a better example, and gets Patience back to the subject of rich and poor. C.15.300 is a good example of labored clarity in the C revision; the reader of B is expected to know that Dives is a beggar in hell.
301 for alle here wel dedes: In this line Patience acknowledges that the rich perform works of charity, but earn no credit toward heaven thereby since they are amply rewarded for them here, as for example by having their donations inscribed in church windows: