He applies to the friars. One after another, every order abuses
the other; nor this only, but for money offers either to teach him his
creed, or to absolve him for ignorance of the same. He finds no helper
until he falls in with Pierce the Ploughman, of whose poverty he gives a
most touching description. I shall, however, only quote some lines of
_The Believe_ as taught by the Ploughman, and this principally to show
the nature of the versification:
Leve thou on our Lord God, that all the world wroughte; _believe._
Holy heaven upon high wholly he formed;
And is almighty himself over all his workes;
And wrought as his will was, the world and the heaven;
And on gentle Jesus Christ, engendered of himselven,
His own only Son, Lord over all y-knowen.
* * * * *
With thorn y-crowned, crucified, and on the cross died;
And sythen his blessed body was in a stone buried; _after that._
And descended adown to the dark helle,
And fetched out our forefathers; and they full fain weren. _glad._
The third day readily, himself rose from death,
And on a stone there he stood, he stey up to heaven. _where: ascended._
Here there is no rhyme. There is measure--a dance-movement in the verse;
and likewise, in most of the lines, what was essential to Anglo-Saxon
verse--three or more words beginning with the same sound.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43