THE VISION OF WILLIAM CONCERNING PIERS THE PLOWMAN BY WILLIAM LANGLAND ACCORDING TO THE VERSION REVISED AND ENLARGED BY THE AUTHOR ABOUT A. D. 1377 EDITED BY THE REV. WALTER W. SKEAT, M.A. Late Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. Editor of the Three-text edition of Piers the Plowman, Lancelot of the Laik,' 'William of Palerne,' 'Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, 'Havelok,' &c. Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS M DCCC LXIX [All rights reserved] CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE PROLOGUE: THE FIELD FULL OF FOLK PASSUS I: THE VISION OF HOLY-CHURCH PASSUS II: MEED AND FALSEHOOD PASSUS V: THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS PASSUS VII: THE PLOWMAN'S PARDON Critical Notes . Notes to the Prologue Notes to Passus I Notes to Passus II . Notes to Passus III. Notes to Passus IV. 116 INTRODUCTION. THE title 'Piers Plowman,' or as I prefer to write it, 'Piers the Plowman,' is one which has been frequently misconstrued and misunderstood by many authors, and concerning which many text-books have blundered inextricably. It is most important that the reader should have a clear idea of what it means, and as it is rather a difficult point to explain accurately, I must ask him to give me his best attention; and I cannot refrain from adding the hope that, if he succeeds in mastering the explanation of it, he will refrain from using the phrase in future in the old slovenly way. The difficulty is two-fold, as originating in a two-fold error. The two mistakes commonly made are these. Firstly, Piers Plowman is used as though it were the name of an author a; and secondly, two poems which are quite distinct, and the respective titles of which are familiarly expressed as The Vision of Piers Plowman and Pierce the Ploughman's Crede, have been frequently confounded together. I must ask the reader to bear in mind that, in what I am now going to say, I make no reference what ever to the Crede, and do not make any assertion about it till I again expressly mention it by its full title. Unless this be remembered, our chance of arriving at the truth is much lessened. Just as Christian is not the author of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, but only the subject of it, so Piers the Plowman is not the author of the Vision, but the subject of it; he is the personage seen in a dream, not the dreamer himself. Neither does the poem describe one continuous dream, but a succession of several; in some of which Piers is neither seen nor mentioned, The last time I saw this mistake was in Chaucer's England,' vol. ii. p. 230, by Matthew Browne; who should have known better. |