The Uision and the Creed of Piers

Ploughman

WITH NOTES AND A GLOSSARY

BY THOMAS WRIGHT M.A. F. R. S. ETC.

VOL. II.

Passus Decimus Quartus, etc.

"I

HAVE but oon hool hater," quod Haukyn;

66 I am the lasse to blame,

Though it be soiled and selde clene: I slepe therinne o nyghtes.

And also I have an houswif,

Hewen and children,

Uxorem duxi, et ideo non possum venire,

That wollen by-molen it many tyme, Maugree my chekes.

It hath be laved in Lente

And out of Lente bothe,
With the sope of siknesse,
That seketh wonder depe,
And with the losse of catel,
Looth for to a-gulte

God of any good man,

By aught that I wiste;

And was shryven of the preest

That gaf me for my synnes
To penaunce pacience

And povere men to fede,

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Al for coveitise of my cristendom In clennesse to kepen it.

T

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