HOPKINS: CHARACTER AND OPINIONS OF WILLIAM LANGLAND. 251 



Truth (God) after repentance (C, XXII., 213-228), and besides, 

 teaches them wit and craft, love and humility. 



Christ as Piers Christ is mentioned in the poem under two dif- 



Plowmaii. ferent aspects; in his own proper personality as the 



Son of (lod, as in the illustrations already given; and in His human 

 personality as Piers Plowman. Piers is at first a simple plowman, 

 unmistakably such; and at the close of the poem he takes on as 

 unmistakably the character and attributes of the Son of God. But 

 the author has accomplished the transition in a very rude and imper- 

 fect manner, full of inconsistencies and contradictions, which he 

 apparently perceived but was unable to remove. 



At first the plowman is introduced to show that real knowledge of 

 Divine things is found rather in the humble than in the learned, 

 whom Pride may have turned from the right way. To make the 

 beginning still more simple, it is not Grace that teaches Piers, but 

 the secondary ministers, Conscience and Kyndewit (C, VIII., 184). 

 The allegorical way that Piers points out leads past the various land- 

 marks of the Ten Commandments, to a court or castle, whose moat 

 is Mercy, the wall Wit, the battlements Christianity, and the buttresses 

 Believe-and-be-saved. Within, the houses are roofed with Love and 

 Leal-Speech. The bars are of Obedience, the bridge is Pray-well, 

 each pillar is of Penance and Prayers to Saints, the hooks that the 

 doors hang on are Alms-deeds. Grace keeps the gate; his servant is 

 Amend-you, and at the postern gates the porters are the seven virtues. 



He who points out this short and easy way to a Celestial City 

 older than Bunyan's, is at first only a simple hind; but he soon begins 

 to assume something of authority, in response to the request that he 

 act as guide. In yielding to this request. Piers begins to reveal the 

 second and most important aspect of his character, that of teacher. 

 He may not go as guide until he has finished plowing his half acre; 

 and that he may finish the sooner, the seekers after Truth set to work 

 to help him. Yet in this passus (C, IX) it is Hunger rather than 

 Piers that exhibits some of thj attributes of Christ, and after Pieis 

 makes his will, Hunger himself becomes the teacher, and advises 

 Piers as to the proper manner of managing the many worthless among 

 his laborers. Here Piers js again merely a plowman, but a man in 

 authority over his half acre, like a head harvestman. 



In the next passus, Truth sends to Piers, forbidding the proposed 

 journey; but sends him a pardon for himself, his heirs, and his 

 servants. This pardon is interpreted with reference to several classes 

 of men, until finally a priest questions both pardon and interpreta- 

 tion, and a dispute is the consequence. Here is a new phase of the 

 development. Piers is not made one of the clergy; but in giving him 



