Quotes from book
Piers Plowman

Name: Piers Plowman
Author: William Langland

Piers Plowman or Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in unrhymed, alliterative verse divided into sections called passus . Like the Pearl Poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest works of English literature of the Middle Ages, even preceding and influencing Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Piers Plowman contains the first known reference to a literary tradition of Robin Hood tales.There exist three distinct versions of the poem, which scholars refer to as the A-, B-, and C-texts. The B-text is the most widely edited and translated version; it revises and extends the A-text by over four thousand lines.

“A fair feeld ful of folk fond I ther bitwene –
Of alle manere of men, the meene and the riche,
Werchynge and wandrynge as the world asketh.”

William Langland book Piers Plowman

B-text, Prologue, line 17.
Piers Plowman

“In preieres and penaunce putten hem manye,
Al for the love of Oure Lord lyveden ful streyte
In hope to have heveneriche blisse”

William Langland book Piers Plowman

In prayers and penance put themselves many
All for the love of Our Lord living full straight
In hope to have heaven-rich bliss
B-Text, Prologue, line 25.
Piers Plowman

“Brewesters and baksters, bochiers and cokes –
For thise are men on this molde that moost harm wercheth
To the povere peple”

William Langland book Piers Plowman

B-text, Passus 3, line 79.
Piers Plowman

“In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne,
I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were,
In habite as an heremite unholy of werkes,
Wente wide in this world wondres to here.
Ac on a May morwenynge on Malverne hilles
Me bifel a ferly, of Fairye me thoghte.”

William Langland book Piers Plowman

B-text, Prologue, line 1.
Piers Plowman

“I kan noght parfitly my Paternoster as the preest it syngeth,
But I kan rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre.”

William Langland book Piers Plowman

B-text, Passus 5, line 395
This is the earliest known mention of the legend of Robin Hood. No rhymes of Randolf, Earl of Chester have survived.
Piers Plowman

“For if hevene be on this erthe, and ese to any soule,
It is in cloistre or in scole.”

William Langland book Piers Plowman

For if heaven be on this earth, and ease to any soul,
It is in cloister or in school
B-text, Passus 10, line 297.
Piers Plowman

“For hevene myghte nat holden it, so was it hevy of hymself,
Til it hadde of the erthe eten his fille.
And whan it hadde of this fold flessh and blood taken,
Was nevere leef upon lynde lighter therafter,
And portatif and persaunt as the point of a nedle,
That myghte noon armure it lette ne none heighe walles.
Forthi is love ledere of the Lordes folk of hevene,
And a meene, as the mair is, [inmiddes] the kyng and the commune.”

William Langland book Piers Plowman

B-text, Passus 1, 153.
Piers Plowman