It is an old over-true tale, a tale not told by Chaucer. Pity for the poor, earnest, clear-sighted, not to be controlled, is the most admirable point in the nature of Langland. He returns to his complaint that men give gifts and gold to minstrels, while the poor suffer cold and hunger, and "lollers" (idle "loafers"), gain money in the abused name of Charity. Yet the poet is not so revolutionary as to attack the Game Laws! In irony or in earnest, he bids Lords to hunt every day in the week but Sunday, to hunt foxes, wolves, and other beasts. That is what Lords are fit for; it amuses them, and is of service to the farmer. Bishops are the cause of most of the mischief: "their dogs," the priests, "dare not bark". With Knox, two centuries later, the bishops themselves are the "dumb dogs". The dream ends, another begins about Do-well, Do-better, Do-best. Do-well (good conduct) is better than Indulgences, as Luther preached later. The poet sets off on the quest of Do-well, who has a castle somewhere. The poet rather leans to heresy when he introduces the Emperor Trajan, boasting that, though a heathen, he was saved "without singing of Mass To Trajan he keeps returning. "Reason rules all beasts, but not men, and why not?" Reason declines to answer. Finally, after giving a summary of Christian morals, the Plowman vanishes away: he returns later, but, whoever comes or goes, the sermons and the satire go on for ever with the same illustrations. The friars are drubbed from end to end, and when at length the narrator awakes, he finds things just as they were, while Conscience goes off to seek Piers Plowman. Probably the most famous and singular part of the poem is the reappearance of Piers Plowman, or of One like him, riding on an ass, barefoot, without spurs or spear, but looking like a knight. Faith peers forth from a window, and cries, "Ah, son of David!" as heralds do when knights ride to tournaments. Jesus is to joust with Satan: then the crucifixion is described, and the terror of Satan, who calls his forces out, places his bronze guns, and orders calthrops to be thrown on the ground under the walls of his castle.[1] The idea of the guns was used by Milton, in a lapse of his genius, in "Paradise Lost". The conclusion is that Righteousness and Peace kiss each other; the dreamer awakes, for the last time, and with Kytte his wife, and Kalote his daughter, creeps to the Cross, and gives thanks for the Resurrection.