Love is Leech of Life and next our Lord's own self,
And also the right gate that goeth to heaven.

So I say of the texts as I said before

When all treasures be tried, Truth is the best:

I have told thee what truth is, no treasure is better,
I may linger no longer, the Lord be thy guide."

Yet he begs that of her grace she will tell him before she goes how he may know the false one. She bids him turn himself about and see both Falseness and Fauvel-falsehood and flattery. He turns and beholds a woman decked out in glorious apparel. "Her robe was full rich, of red scarlet engrained With ribbons of red gold, and of rich stones.

Her array me ravished, such richness saw I never.

I had wonder what she was, and whose wife she was:

What is this woman,' said I, 'so worthily attired?'

That is Meed the maid,' quoth she, 'hath noyed me full oft.

False was her father, that hath a fickle tongue

And never Truth saith, sithen he come to earth.

And Meed is mannered after him, right as kind asketh,
Qualis pater, talius filius; bona arbor bonum fructum facit.''

And my Lady Church tells him that on the morrow Lady Meed is to be married to Sir False-fickle-tongue, and "then you may see the whole crew that belongeth to that Lordship," for Fauvel, through his fair speech, hath brought them together. And so she leaves the dreamer to watch the preparations for the wedding.

In the next three sections of the poem we have the forbiddal of the marriage by Theology, who disputes its legality, the adjournment to the King's Court at Westminster, the arraignment there of Lady Meed by Conscience, her attempted refutation of the charges against her which he brings, the judgment of the high chief justice Reason, the final decision of the King that until Reformation is accomplished in the land there shall be no pity, and no wrong shall go unpunished or be atoned for by gifts.

"No Meed shall buy bail, by Saint Mary in Heaven!

And wrong by the righteous shall be rightly condemned."

It is a wonderful Hogarthian picture, full of minutest detail and vivid characterisation, crowds, groups, classes, individuals, the King, the Lords, the Commons, the clergy, the lawyers, the people, the whole organisation of the state in Edward III.'s time, telling under allegorical form of the actual evils which were threatening the ruin of society, of the only possible means of reformation, and of the true theory of life.

And then once more the scene shifts, and we come to the vision of the seven deadly sins, and the appearance for the first time of Piers the Plowman, followed by the Pilgrimage of the Penitents to the Tower of Truth.

"A thousand of men there thronged together

Cried upward to Christ and to His clean Mother
To have grace to go with them Truth to seek."

On failure, however, of any to guide them on the road, Peterkin the Plowman himself offers to be their leader

"By S. Peter of Rome, he cries,

I have an half-acre to ear by the highway.

Had I eared this half-acre and sowed it after

I would wend with you and the way teach."

But Truth himself appears to the Plowman and tells him that the work of ploughing and sowing his halfacre is so important that he is not to leave it, even to lead a pilgrimage. The business of the Plowman is to work, and to help the world to work with him. Laborare est orare. If all good men go on pilgrimage

who is to do the world's work?

So Peterkin stays at home and preaches the Gospel of Work and Brotherhood for Christ's sake. And this is how he preaches it. "Christ," he says

“Gave each man a grace to guide himself with,
That idleness encumber him not, envy nor pride.
Some he gave wit with words to show

Wit to win their livelihood as the world asketh,
As preachers and priests and prentices of law

They loyally to live by labour of tongue,

And by wit to make wise others as grace them would teach;
And some he learned craft and cunning of sight

With selling and buying their livelihood to gain ;
And some he learned to labour a loyal life and true,
And some he taught to till, to ditch and to thatch,
And some to divine and divide, numbers to know,
And some to compass craftily and colours to make.

And some to ride and recover what unrightfully was won,
And all he learned to be loyall, and each craft love other.
Though some be cleaner than some, See ye well, quoth He,
That he that followeth the fairest craft to the foulest I could
have put him.

Look that none blame other, but love all as brethren;
And who that most mastery can be mildest of bearing,

And crown conscience King and make work your steward."7

In another vision Thought instead of Truth appears to the dreamer, and tells him how

"Do wel: Do bet: and do Best

Are three fair virtues and be not far to find,

Whoso is true of his tongue and of his two hands,

And through his labour or through his land his livelihood winneth,
And taketh but his own. Do well him followeth.

It is in this allegory-" the Vision of Do Well: Do Bet: Do Best "-that the exaltation of the Plowman takes place.

The question is put, "What is the Vita de Dobet?" And the answer, following the text of S. Paul's great ode on "Charity," in 1 Corinthians xiii., is that the life of Dobet is Love. But who is Love, asks the dreamer? "Without the help of Piers the Plowman," is the reply, "thou canst never see His person."

"And that knoweth no clerke: no creature on earth
But Piers the Plowman. Petrus, id est Cristus."

And so under the guise of the Plowman, in his suffering and humiliation, Christ Himself is represented as the great Social Emancipator; and we are told how the Jews, "who were gentilmen," despised Him

whom they ought to have honoured, and how His followers were labouring men, and how still

"For our joy and our health, Jesus Christ of Heaven

In a poor man's apparell pursueth us ever,

And looketh upon us in their likeness and that with lovely cheer
To know us by our kind heart and casting of our eyes
Whether we love the lords here before our Lord of bliss.
For all we are Christ's creatures and of his coffers rich
And brethren as of one blood as well beggars as earls." 8

Once more the scene shifts, and the poet pictures himself in Malvern Church, falling asleep during the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, and dreaming this dream of the Christ

"I fell eftsoon to sleep and suddenly I met

That Piers the Plowman, was painted all bloody,
And came in with a cross before the common people
And light like in all things to the Lord Jesus
And then called I Conscience to ken me the truth.

Is this Jesus the jouster? quoth I, the Jews did to death?
Or is it Piers Plowman? who painted him so red?
Quoth Conscience and kneeled then, these are Christes arms
His colours and coat armour, and he that cometh so bloody
It is Christ with his cross, Conqueror of Christendom.”

And so with growing power and vividness the poem draws to its close, with a description of the death of Christ, of His triumph over Death and Hell-told in an allegory which is based on the text of the Gospel of Nicodemus-of His Resurrection, of His Ascension, and of the meeting together of Truth and Mercy, Righteousness and Peace, till, with this news of the final victory of Love, the poet wakens from his dream. with the joy-bells ringing in his ears on the morning of Easter Day."