“I have no penny, quod Piers, pullets for to buy, Ne neither geese nor pigs, but two green cheeses, A few cruddes and cream, and an haver-cake, And two loaves of beans and bran ybake for my fauntis. And yet I say, by my soul, I have no salt bacon, Nor no cookeney, by Christ, collops for to maken. And I have percil and porettes and many kole-plantes, And eke a cow and a calf, and a cart-mare To draw afield my dung the while the drought lasteth. And by this lyflode me mot live till lammas time; And by that I hope to have harvest in my croft; And then may I digte thy dinner as me dear liketh.” Some are worse off than the ploughman in the slack time before the harvest: “All the poor people tho pesecoddes fetched, Beans and baken apples they brought in their lappes, Chibolles and chervelles and ripe cherries many, And proferred Piers this present to plead with Hunger. All Hunger ate in haste, and axed after more. Then poor folk for fear fed Hunger eagerlie, With green poret and pesen, to poison Hunger they thought. By that it nighed near harvest, new corn came to chipping. Then was folk fain, and fed Hunger with the best, With good ale, as glutton taught, and gerte Hunger go sleep. And though would waster not work but wandren about, Ne no beggar eat bread that beans in were, But of cocket or clerematyn or else of clean wheat: Ne no halfpenny ale in none wise drink, But of the best and of the brownest that in burgh is to sell. Labourers that have no land to live on, but their hands, Deigned nought to dine a-day night-old wortes. May no penny ale them pay ne no piece of bacon, But if it be fresh flesh other fish fried other bake.” The waster being now in his season of plenty falls to abusing the Statute of Labourers: “And then cursed he the king and all his council after, Such laws to loke, labourers to grieve. But whiles Hunger was their master there would none of them chide, Nor strive against _his_ statute, so sternly he looked. And I warn you, workmen, wynneth while ye mowe, For Hunger hitherward hasteth him fast. He shall awake with water wasters to chasten. Ere five year be fulfilled such famine shall arise Through floods and through foul weathers fruits shall fail. And so said Saturn, and sent you to warn ... Then shall death withdraw and dearth be justice, And Daw the dyker die for hunger, But if God of his goodness grant us a truce.” He proposes to feed the lazy wasters on beans: “And gif the groomes grudge, bid them go swynk, And he shall sup the sweeter when he hath deserved.” The ploughman asks Hunger the reason why both himself and his servants are unable to work: