The Jews and the Justice against Jesus they were
And all their court cried on Him Crucifige sharpe ;
Then stood him forth a robber; before Pilate, and said
This Jesus japed and despised at our Jewish temple
To destroy it on a day and in three days after
To build it up again · (here he stands that said it)
And yet
maken it as much in all manner of points
Both as long and as large aloft and on ground.

'Crucifige,' quoth a catchpoll, I warrant Him a witch.
Tolle, tolle,' quoth another and took of keen thorns,
And began of keen thorns a garland to make,
And set it sore on His head and said in envy

'Ave Rabbi!' quoth that ribald and threw reeds at Him,
Nailed Him with three nails naked on the Rood,

And poison on a pole they put up to His lips

And bade Him drink His death-ill, His days being done.

If that Thou be skilfull save now Thyself.

If Thou be Christ and King's son come down from the rood

Then shall we leave Thee that life Thou lovest and will not let

Thee die.'

Consummatum est' quoth Christ, and began for to swoon

Piteously and pale like a prisoner that dyeth,

The Lord of life and of light then closed His eyes together.
The Day for dread withdrew and dark became the sun.

The wall trembled and cleft in twain and all the world shook
Dead men because of that din came out of deep graves

And told why that tempest so long time endured.

For a bitter battle '-the dead body said—

'Life and death in this darkness the one destroys the other
Shall no man know truly who shall have the mastery

Before Sunday about sun rising,' and sank with that to earth.
Some said that He was God's son who died so fair

Vere filius dei erat iste.

And some said He was a witch good is it that we try
Whether He be dead or not dead. ere He be taken down.'
Two thieves also suffered death that time

Upon a cross beside Christ so was the common law.

A catchpole came forth and cracked both their legs,
And their arms after of both the thieves,

And was no boy so bold God's body to touch,

For He was knight and king's son nature forgave that time

That no harlot were so hardy

But there came forth a knight

to lay hands upon Him.
with a keen spear in rest,

Named Longeus, as the letter telleth and long had lost his sight.
Before Pilate and other people in the place he waited about,
In spite of his many words he was made that time

To take the spear in his hand and joust with Jesus

For all the rest were unbold

To touch or to handle Him

who waited on horse or afoot

or take Him down from the Rood

But this blind bachelor then · pierced Him through the heart

.

The blood sprang down by the spear · and unfastened the knight's eyes.
Then fell the knight upon his knees and cried for mercy.
'Against my will it was, Lord to wound Thee so sore'
He sighed and said. 'sore it me athinketh,

For the deed that I have done. I place me in your grace,

Have on me pity, O just Jesus!' and right with that he wept.

Then began Faith the false Jews to upbraid

To call them caitiffs accursed for ever

For this foul villainy vengeance to you all

To do this blind deed on Him ybound it was a boy's counsel
Cursed caitiff knighthood was it never

To misdo a dead body by day or by night

The prize hath he gotten for all his great wound.

For your champion chevalier

chief knight of you all

And ye lordlings have been worsted for life shall have the mastery And franchise which was free hath fallen into thraldom,

your

And you, churls and your children, thrive shall you never

Nor have lordship in land, nor land to till

But all barren be and live only by usury,

Which is a life that our Lord in all laws accurseth.

Now your good days are done as Daniel prophesieth

When Christ came of her kingdom the crown should cease.'

'Cum veniat sanctus sanctorum, cessabit unxio vestra.'"

Then follows a scene in which Mercy and Truth, and Righteousness and Peace, are represented discoursing together in the darkness on the scheme of redemption, and wondering as to the light which is seen burning afar off about the gates of hell. Then once more, with rapid transition, the poet carries us away to listen to the dialogue between the powers of darkness and the victorious Saviour, who demands admission to the infernal dungeon. Satan, Lucifer, and their peers vainly resist His voice, but the gates of hell may not prevail against Him, and amid the triumphant chorus, "Undo the gates that the Lord of might and main and all manner of virtue, the King's Son of Heaven, may come in," the gates are broken, and Christ descends into hell, offers soul for soul, life for life, death for death, and claims His own, binds Satan with chains, and brings forth the souls of them whom He liked and listed.

poem comes to an end.

66

Many hundreds of angels harped and sang

Culpat caro, purgat caro; regnat deus dei caro. Then piped Peace of Poetry a note,

• Clarior est solito post maxima nebula phebus,

Post inimicitias clarior est et amor.'

After sharp showers,' saith Peace, most sheen is the sun,

Is no weather warmer than after watery clouds;

Nor no love dearer nor dearer friendship,

Than after war and wo when Love and Peace be masters.

Was never war in this world nor wickedness, so keen,

That love and his desire did not bring them to laughing,
For Peace, through Patience, will all peril stop.'

True it is,' said Truth, thou tellest truth, by Jesu,

Embrace we in covenant, and let each kiss the other.'

And let no people,' said Peace, 'perceive that we chide,

For impossible is nothing to Him that is Almighty.'

And so the

'Thou sayeth truth,' said Righteousness, and reverently her kissed. Peace and Peace here! per secula seculorum.

Misericordia et veritas obvaverunt sibi,

Justicia et pax osculati sunt.

Truth blew her trumpet and sang · te deum laudamus,
And then luted Love in a loud note,

Ecce quam bonum, et quam jocundum, etc.

Till the day dawned these damsels danced,

And men rang the Easter bells and right with that I waked,
And called Kit my wife, and Kalote my daughter,

• Arise ye and reverence God's Resurrection,

And creep to the Cross on knees and kiss it for a jewel!
For God's blessed body it was pierced for our good,

And it frighteth the evil one for such is its might.
May no grisly ghost glide where it shadoweth.""

NOTE 10, p. 89.

"Nothing can illustrate more vividly the universality of the forces which in the fourteenth century were undermining the fabric of the mediæval European order than the fundamental likeness between 'The Divine Comedy' and 'The Vision of Piers Plowman.' On a superficial view, indeed, many features in the two poems stand out in vivid contrast. Writing half a century after the death of Dante, there is nothing to show that Langland had read or even heard of the work of his great predecessor. That work, with its sharp, clear-cut, and precise forms, with its constant allusions to particular places, persons, and events, offers as clear a mirror of Italian city life as the 'Vision of Piers Plowman,' so crowded with scenes of generic painting, so free from individual names and details, affords of the semibarbarous society of feudal England. No less striking is the contrast between the persons of the two poets; the Florentine of noble birth, deeply versed in all the art and science of his age, experienced in civil affairs, master of a beautiful and harmonious form of verse; the Englishman, the descendant perhaps of small landowners, bred in the monastic school, the observer of ditchers, hucksters, and cut-purses in country lanes and London ale-houses, using as his poetical instrument the rude alliterative measure long neglected even by the Saxon minstrel.

"For all this, the two men find themselves face to face with the same social diseases; and the ideal remedy for these evils, which each suggests, proceeds from a similar method of imaginative reasoning. Both held that the corruptions of their time arose out of the confusion between the temporal and spiritual powers; both conceived that it was the duty of Church and State to pursue their separate objects in the closest alliance; each was a firm upholder of the monarchical principle; each believed that the true image of social order was revealed in the doctrines of the Catholic Church. The divergence between their ideas was due to a difference in the local circumstances to which the ideas had to be applied" (Courthope, "History of English Poetry," vol. i. p. 226).

There are many similarities of detail between the two poems, however, which, although they are doubtless, as Mr. Courthope implies, merely the result of similarity of aim and mood in the two poets, are curious to notice. The dialogues between Piers Plowman and Holy Church continually seem to echo the dialogue of Dante and Virgil. Dante, like the hero of Langland's poem, meets the seven deadly sins: he wakes and sleeps again, he dreams new dreams: he sees a mystical representation of the Gospel story. Both poets accept the legend that Trajan was saved both refuse to admit that the heroes of the classic world were indiscriminately cast into hell. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, "the master of them that know," "hawk-eyed Cæsar," Horace, Ovid, Lucan, are placed by Dante in the first circle of Limbo. Langland also protests against the idea of Aristotle being damned.

"For Solomon the sage that sapience taught

God gave him grace of wit, and all his good after
He deemed well and wisely, as holy writ telleth.
Aristotle and he, who taught men better?
Masters they of God's mercy, to teach men and preach
Of their words they taught us, the wisest of their time,
And doth all Holy Church hold them both ydamned?"