LITMIR.BIZ

       C Passus 16; B Passūs 14–15

      Headnote (see also the general note to Passus B.14, pp. 78–79 above)

      Passus 16 is unique in that much of it is manufactured in plain view from Latin sources. I say “plain view” because three of these are quoted at length, and explicated at great length: the definition of poverty, quoted en bloc at line 116, and extending through line 157; the names of Liberum arbitrium, quoted en bloc at line 201, and occupying lines 173–208; and Pseudo-Chrysostom on priests, quoted en bloc at line 272, and occupying lines 243–285. In addition, lines 43–101, on the deadly sins, original though the argument is that the poor don’t commit them, have an ultimate source in a Latin idea, and the account of charity with which the passage ends opens with a fourteen-line riff on 1 Corinthians 13. That is 194 lines out of 374, or 52 percent of the passus. I have entitled them “Four Passages of Rhetorical Amplification.” As might be expected from such a structure, nothing happens in the passus except that Liberum arbitrium appears (and Patience disappears): other than that, it’s all talk.

      Nevertheless, there is a seismic shift, for with the coming of Liberum arbitrium, Will’s quest has begun its denouement. I have been insisting that Patience is an important character, is no less than Christ—and yet by passus 16 his best moments are behind him. Here his praise of patient poverty comes to border on the outré: the argument that the poor do not commit the deadly sins is a brilliant tour de force, and so are the little vignettes featured in the paradoxical definitions of poverty—and yet their instructive power for Will seems slight. Liberum arbitrium is closer to Will: he may be called “Active’s leader” but he is clearly Will’s, too, his own free will, and he will lead him to see his own heart, cor hominis, at the start of passus 18. He starts off a little like Patience, riffing on his names, but moves then to sharp criticism of Will’s excessive commitment to knowledge, then to criticism of the clergy of which Will is a part, and finally into his passionate description of Charity. The poem dallies in the first half of this passus, as if gathering strength for its final movement, and by the time it reaches the description of Charity it is in high gear.

      The same movement is present in the B version, though Actyf’s repentance at the end of passus 14, and Will’s waking, mute the contrast between Patience and Anima.

      Patience continues his reply to Actyf (1–157, B.14.132–322)

      1–157 (B.14.132–322) Allas þat rychesse … what pouerte was to mene): Patience continues to instruct Actyf about poverty. In lines 1–113 (B.14.132–273), he continues his speech in praise of poverty as the sure way to heaven. (To repeat Pearsall’s dictum, here in the words of his note to line 1, “Poverty, which was the worst of the world’s problems in the Visio, is now, so to speak, the solution to them.”) This portion of the speech has four parts. The first (1–21, B.14.132–67) continues the argument that the poor deserve “allowance” when they die. The second (22–42, B.14.168–201) is a prayer for contrition, very different in the two versions. The third (43–101, B.14.202–61) makes a new case that the poor deserve heaven over the rich by arguing that the seven deadly sins assail the rich and not the poor (an implicit admonition to the rich; cf. 20.350–58n). The fourth (102–13, B.14.262–73) asserts the special claim on heaven of those who freely give up their possessions and embrace poverty. Actyf then interrupts to ask for a definition of poverty (114–15, B.14.274–75), and Patience gives a nine-part answer (116–57, B.14.276–322).

      The poor deserve “allowance” when they die (16.3–21, B.14.134–67)

      3–21 Hewen þat haen here huyre byfore … som pore and ryche (B.14.134–67 Hewen þat han hir hire afore … if þee wel hadde liked): Cf. 3.293–308, where Conscience denounces advance payment in the course of distinguishing proper meed from improper. He does not, however, apply the idea to the salvation of the rich. The application here is subtle. Once again the basic point seems to be that those who have been paid in advance should not be paid again (and thus the rich do not deserve heaven, since they had it on earth). But in fact the discussion here in C does not center on double payment; rather, for drede of dessallouwynge (7, B.14.139) is the key phrase. The objection to the practice is not so much to double payment (which is after all easily avoided by good accounting) but rather to the likelihood that advance payment will mean overpayment: the worker will end the day in debt to his employer, since he is likely to produce less than he was expected to produce. The passage somewhat illogically mingles two different objections to advance payment. The first is double payment: those who have been paid in advance should not be paid again, obviously, and the rich should not have two heuenes 9. But lines 3–7 express the different objection that, even if double payment is avoided, advance payment is in all likelihood overpayment (cf. 3.291–332 and n. and 3.300n). According to this second idea, a rich man not only does not deserve heaven, he doesn’t even deserve the heaven he had here on earth, and is thus not just all square with God but actually in debt to him, that is, he deserves not only the loss of heaven but the punishment of hell. Thus the satire on the rich is intensified: it isn’t just that they have had their reward (Matt 6:5), but that they have had it and didn’t earn it. Theoretically the rich can avoid such debt by living well and following the financial guidelines of Psalm 14 in the manner outlined by Conscience in an earlier part of the same speech in the B version, excised in C: B.3.232–254. At the end of that speech Conscience has turned his attention to those who take improper meed, quoting Matt 6:5, Amen, amen, receperunt mercedem suam; that passage is the germ of the idea here; see also Luke 6:24, “Vae vobis divitibus, quia habetis consolationem vestram” (Woe to you that are rich, for you have your consolation). See also B.3.72, where lords are urged to stop advertising their good deeds, “On auenture ye haue youre hire here and youre heuene als.” And see 15.279–16.21 (B.14.104–65)n, 15.301n, and, for yet another treatment of how the rich can earn credit with Christ, 13.65–78; finally, see the quotation from Hildegard of Bingen cited in the note to B.14.212a, on how the rich try to have heaven and earth at once.

      In the B version of the passage, L is ambivalent: at B.14.145 he makes a major qualification: it is, after all, possible to get paid twice, both for rich and poor, as a servant who does his duty well is given a cote aboue his couenaunt (151). But then that qualification is itself qualified in B.14.155–56: it’s not often seen with the rich, and this leads into the muche murþe passage that at C.16.10 follows right on the initial statement opposing advance payment. The two consecutive Acs in B, at 14.145 and 155, get L back to where he was at 144: the rich are unlikely to go to heaven. It was thus easy to drop the whole twelve-line passage in C, yielding a clearer if less nuanced treatment of the issue.

      The idea that the rich will be punished later relies not only

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