Vox Clamantis

Translation by Robert J. Meindl and Mark Riley

Book 4

The fourth book begins.

Chapter 1 

            Since he has discussed the error of the clergy, to whom pertains especially the guidance

of our souls, now he intends to discuss the error of the men of the religious orders. First he will

speak about monks and others who acquire possession of temporal goods. Commending, to be

sure, the sanctity of their order, he rebukes chiefly those who fashion contrary works.

The fourth book begins.

     There are also the cloistered men of diverse sort,

Of whom I’ll write a few things that I know.

As their behavior proves, property defines some,

Poverty others, although it’s much feigned.

A religious order is good in itself, but

We say those who betray it are wicked.

I think those who live true in the cloister are blessed,

Those who aren’t guilty of love of the world.

Those who put their hand to the plow, not looking back,

The order will designate holy men.                                        10

God is among these monks and they’re heaven’s fellowship,

Who wish to be cloistered, without the world.

But when you try to love opposites equally,

The one love saps the strength of the other.

Thus they who think to hide their face in the order’s

Shade, and beneath it commit the world’s sins,

To such I address my writings, and others won’t

Be harmed by them; let each bear his own load.

Nothing I write is my own, for I shall relate

Things borne to me by the vox populi.                                   20

     Indeed there are monks who’ve title to property,

Whom an order cannot tie down by rules.

For some landowners seek out an order’s leisure

So that they won’t suffer any hardships.

They forbear to bear hunger and drown thirst with wine,

And flee from all cold with warm mistresses.

A full stomach does not arise in the nighttime,

Nor a voice hoarse from drink chime in the choir.

If such does not gulp many platters at table,

And empty many cups in his drinking,                                   30

He thinks he’s fallen ill, hence demands that he be

Restored, and then idles about in play.

For he who’s sworn is scarce worn by all his drinking;

The Domnus wants to draw nigh God with wine.

But when you will have wine, it brings the women in;

These days the wanton cloisters offer both.

If he can gain heaven in his comfy clothing,

And gluttony is rife 'mongst those above,

Then I think the monk distinguished on either count

Shall be Peter’s fellow in heaven’s vault.                               40

Chapter 2 

     Here he speaks about those monks who, forsaking the virtue of abstinence against the

statutes of the first order, enjoy the delights of the flesh in many ways.  

     There’s no way the dead belong among the living:

Who renounces the world gives up its ways.

Neither the tonsure nor the plainest garb avails

If one’s a wolf, although he seem a sheep.

Men are able to deceive, though no one’s able

To deceive the Christ, who deceives no one.

Indeed, he condemns the deceit of religious

Pretense, and thinks it amounts to nothing.

But now the monk departs the world in dress only,

And thinks an order’s manner is enough.                              50

He cares only for his order’s material wealth:

Clothes make the monk; his mind wanders the world.

For such a monk, because he knows the belly’s flesh

Seldom thrives on the order’s meager fare,

Seeks the gullet’s plenty, and consumes foods he craves

To fulfill his gut’s joys in his gullet.

Unlike his father, whose shoulders bore his burdens,

The monk bears the best wine in his belly.

He pours Bacchus in his stomach like it’s a jug;

There’s no empty spot in his swollen gut.                              60

     For a host of reasons, a monk should steer clear of

Bacchus, for one, lest the flesh seek out shame.

The man ought not waste his fellows’ goods, sit about

Drunkenly, nor behave feverishly.

Yet he cares for nothing but stuffing his foolish

Flesh, while every day starving his poor soul.

Nowadays the monk’s snow-white bread, exquisite wine,

And roasted meats provide a daily feast.

These days, behold! the cook roasts, broils, thickens and thins,

Rubs, plucks, decorates and tastes what he makes.                70

If the gluttonous monk can fatten up his gut,

He thinks sacred writ doesn’t enjoin work.

Despising manna, this sort wants blackened cook pots,

And puts his vices before his morals.

Lest hunger might weaken stout fellows, lo! their gut’s

Friend, Gluttony, packs their languid stomachs full.

He doesn’t know about honors; a blessed belly,

Our monk says, is way, life, and salvation.

Rushing swiftly, he runs when the dinner bell rings;

Not one crumb from the table escapes him.                           80

But rising with sluggish foot from his cot by night,

He seeks to be last when he comes to Lauds.

     Houses for the order’s monks were but caves at first;

Now they’re furnished with grand halls of marble.

There was no steamy kitchen, nor did any cook

Serve them, by the fire, tasty stews or roasts. 

No steamed dishes nor platters piled up high with meat,

Gave the monks rich fare in the early days.

The body’s gluttony did not weigh down their minds;

Their fervid flesh sought no hot debaucheries.                    90

Those who these days cover themselves with softest wool,

Covered their bare flesh with animal hides.

The pasture provided food; the spring, drink; a foul

Hair shirt, clothes, but there was no grumbling then.

There was no envy or pomp in the cloister then;

Who was greater served just like the lesser.

There was no weight of silver, nor a chain of gold,

That could then violate their holy state.

Coin didn’t touch their pockets, nor wine their palates;

Carnal flames didn’t run wild in their loins.                          100

They had a holy mind that served their purpose well,

Persisting in the work they’d well begun.

     They had been righteous men, fugitives from the world,

Those men whom no love of the sins weighed down. 

The world did not drag them from off the righteous path,

Nor fetid flesh beckon them to evil.

They put aside all the vanities the world serves,

And longed only for the God of heaven.

There was no shame then to take rest upon the straw,

Nor to lay down some hay beneath one’s head.                   110

Woods were their house; plants, their food; boughs, their bed chamber,

Which the earth provided without effort.

The highly valued hazel flourished among them,

And sturdy oaks provided great riches. 

They gathered madrone fruit and mountain strawberries,

Which were preserved with neither salt nor spice.

If any acorns fell from the broad tree of Jove,

They gleaned them and remained strong with these foods.

Content with simple produce from willing Nature,

They loosed their humble prayers to God on high.                120

Perfect sowers of the seeds of justice then, they

Now reap, endlessly, fruits a hundred-fold. 

But the salvation of souls that was religion,

Weakened, dies out, overwhelmed by the flesh.

Chapter 3 

     Here he tells how the manner and rule originally established in orders by their founders have

lately been subverted among many by sinful practices. 

     The spirit is oft drawn to new fashions, and here

The monk’s altered rule will be my witness.

These days the monks’ first regula [rule] has been shortened,

For re subtracted, just gula [greed] remains.

Drinking lavish wines by the tun is all the mode

With monks, who gulp without moderation.                          130

That a wagging tongue can’t disturb their greedy jaws,

The order commands silence at mealtime.

Lest a foot weighed down by a heavy paunch give way,

The monk first takes a seat before he drinks.

It helps, too, that the rotund monk’s head is tonsured,

Lest flowing hair get in the way of drink.

Monks contract mutual pacts, that, if one of them

Makes a toast, he’ll leave naught in the bottom;

So they empty full vessels and refill empties,

That their houses make Bacchus proper feasts.                      140

A roomy robe is thus helpful to our stuffed monk,

Lest the sight of his paunch should be exposed.

     Love of eating always rages in such a monk;

Food and sleep provide what he most desires.

What sea, what land provide, and what the air brings forth,

The greedy man devours with greedy maw.

Just as the sea receives rivers from all the earth,

And yet ocean’s great thirst always wants more,

And just as a deep pit receives wandering streams,

Yet is not sated no matter how much flows,                          150

And just as the heat of a fire burns up timber,

Yet the more that there is the more it wants,

Just so the monk’s gullet gulps with his profane mouth,

For love of his belly, his diverse feasts.

So he bears a gut heavy with a ripe burden,

And his mind, light and empty, turns from Christ.

Laden with drink, the holy man is immobile,

Stays fixed and heavy in the place he took.

When he drinks wine, the monks’ empty mind grows sluggish,

Relinquishes the cloister’s heavy weight.                          160

So his full pious guts rejoice when they’re infused

With the flowing wine his spirit favors.

So soporifics fashion the saint’s lengthy sleeps,

And too much wine consumed causes slumber.

I don’t know how a wine drinker can be chaste, for

Venus rages in wine like flame in fire.

Thus Venus, lurking snugly beneath a hair shirt,

Joys, and does wicked deeds in sacred guise.

     Envy murmurs in the cavern of the monk’s breast;

His mouth dumb without, his mind spins within.                  170

And since his tongue is still, his hand, privy to signs,

Tells more than enough filth with its fingers.

So the loquacious digit speaks, redeems the word’s

Silence, and rages in spats like a whore.

His face swells with his wrath, his veins blacken with blood,

His excited eyes flash brighter than fires.

His raging anger will lend color to his eyes,

In which the other’s demise can be seen.

The pride that shows perniciously in such a face

Would gladly commit murder with a sword.                            180

Although the order forbids him to war with words,

He fights, and in his mind he severs heads

Although he can’t speak, his heart mutters secretly,

And grows hoarse with envy of his brother.

His face enraged, his muttering passes for words,

And, in his mind, he kills whom his hand can’t.

His pale face, heaving breast, and frightful demeanor

Are the messengers of his disturbed mind;

For whatever a man undergoes, his features

Reveal the symptoms of his inner strife.                                190

     The face reveals the mind’s emotion, and remarks

The anger of a heart fired by grievance.

For no index of the mind, when it voiceless speaks,

Can be more reliable than the face.

No matter how severe their simple garment is,

Their behavior teaches what lies within.

The monks put their superior far from their love,

Hate those they're incapable of following.

They flock together at the ringing of the bell,

But hold the service emptily, by form.                                   200

Their voices sing as one, their minds mutter within,

Their mouths seeks heaven’s place; their minds, the earth’s. 

They serve the form of the service, not its substance,

Cherish their empty bodies, their fruits plucked.

Thus they manifest work and wisdom without, but

They behave much more stupidly within.

Chapter 4 

     Here he talks about those monks who, against their order’s founding rules, dare secretly,

without the knowledge of their superiors, to appropriate the world’s wealth for wicked purposes. 

     It is more helpful not to take than to break vows,

For no praise should be given a liar.

Brotherly love, indeed, ought to be mutual,

At least for those a pious order binds.                            210

The modern day, however, doesn’t suffer this,

For spite turns to anger what love there was.

Like a grazing ox endlessly chewing his cud,

The devil’s ‘prentice gossips in cloister. 

If you would not be chewed up, take no corrody

In the midst of those where good faith is rare.

When they want what is yours, then they will worship you,

But they don’t intend to stay grateful long.

Their first endowment conferred nothing upon them,

Beyond the daily income that they seek.                                220

Reason denies, as does the order, that a man

Can be both an owner and a beggar.

But nothing in the world now sates these idle monks,

Who always have a hunger and a thirst.

We read about Jerome and likewise Benedict,

That we better follow their examples.

They sold the ornaments from their altars, and gave

The poor the proceeds as nutritious foods.

To the poor belong Church’s goods, which religious

Are not allowed to keep when they see need.                        230

     If you’d give to a monk, he’ll grab all you offer,

But he’s got nothing if you beg from him.

They’re all alike, because it’s in this same spirit

That each one wants what’s his all to himself.

So whatever rules the old order first cherished,

The new order corrupts with its changed ways.

We rarely see the freeborn become monks; therefore,

There are more crude peasants in the order.

Yet those holy men, sworn by a holy order,

Are by their office free and worthy men.                               240

But what shall I say to those who are not worthy

By their birth or order? They waste their time.

Even if Benedict has confirmed those who are

Accursed, God for his part does not bless them.

My writings accuse those whom the world attracts more 

Than Christ, and who look backward from the plow.

     Why, I ask, does he want aught who’s forsaken all?

Why would he do evil who’s vowed good deeds?

You who seek to have the heavens should scorn the earth;

If you seek lasting things, flee the fleeting.                            250

Do those made monks rightly have their own property?

I don’t know about right, but watch their acts!

If a shrine’s guard, when he has a chance to take some,

Wants coins for himself, he’ll be my witness.

When a monk, in the performance of his duties,

Keeps some for himself, his ends prove his means.

For when he has gathered enough he will enrich

His nephews and thus endow new cloisters.

And often he calls nephews those whom he sired,

In praise of Venus, whom he, pious, serves.                            260

Indeed, his children are turned out under false names,

So that charity, blinded, will help them.

     So false almsgiving abounds in corrupt cloisters,

When a monk gives his gifts to his children.

Secret monkish piety flowers in the world,

When one pretends to take gifts for God’s love.

When theft becomes legal, then I’m able to say

It’s legal to bring God things from such gifts.

But who thus turns what’s common to his own uses,

Bears God’s curse to the value of the gift.                             270

Cloisters collapse into ruins by gifts of such sort,

When their storehouses groan with such a grain.

A hundred monks grow gaunt, while they stand their duties,

So that two or three may have their fat lips.

“All things are ours,” they say, but the scale’s pans don’t hang

Level, when one takes himself more than three.

Chapter 5 

     Here he tells how monks ought not wander outside the cloister. 

     The sea is the proper habitat for live fish,

And the cloister is the fit home for monks.

Just as the sea will decline to keep its dead fish,

So the cloister thence spews out its bad monks.                    280

Let a monk be in cloister, a fish in water,

Or else order has been turned upside down.

Should a fish, forsaking the waves of the ocean,

Seek to take its sustenance from the land,

The name of fish is no longer appropriate,

And it should be considered a portent.

I would say to the cloisterer who hungers for

The world’s pleasures and then deserts his cell,

He won’t be a monk, but by rights called apostate,

What God’s wrath calls "portent of the temple."                    290

And they who stay in cloister but, wandering in mind,

Look to the world with new love in their heart,

Their transgression befouls them in the sight of God,

Where they lose their cloister’s worthy rewards.

He is not wise who gathers good things for many

Years, and dissipates them all in one day.

The monk who runs around the towns and countryside

Often meets something which makes him sinful.

But there are few at present who, in thought or deed,

Won’t give their wandering hearts to their pleasures.            300

Solomon said the very clothing that a man

Wore on the outside taught what was inside.

But though a monk fancy himself in humble clothes,

You’ll now see many proud things on his back.

Chapter 6

     Here he talks about those monks who take upon themselves the habit of an order, not for

divine service, but rather for the honor and pleasure of this world. 

     The crow’s a black bird and a corpse robber, whom blind

Lust colors black to signify evil.

With this species of bird the Lawgiver marked those

Whom worldly love cloaks in religion.

He also intends him whom religious garments

Disguise, so he’ll sooner bask in honor.                                 310

A monstrous beast is ugly, a grassless pasture,

A bush without leaves and a hairless head.

Yet uglier is a monk who dons the order’s

Habit and doesn't have a monk's nature.

     Since the monks’ ancient rule commands they flee the world,

They say they do, but, fleeing, pursue it.

The poor man, who was born by serf’s lineage to plow,

Would, though base, be prior to the Prior.

Whom the world has granted no honor pursues it

In the cloister, forgetting his old state.                                   320

So those whom Nature made lowly by patrimony,

The order raises high when they’re made monks.

But they want to be called My Lord, and not Abbot,

And they make wide what was a narrow way.

Nothing vexes them, and they think they can’t be vexed;

Therefore, they know scarce nothing to ask God.

Chapter 7

     Here he tells how patience and other virtues, the vices having supervened, have departed from

certain cloisters. 

     Domnus Patience is dead, and the monk Mutterer

Lives on, and there’s no peace in his cloisters.

Domnus Chastity is also dead now, and Lust

Succeeds him and devastates the houses.                      330

And Domnus Inconstant denies Constant cloisters

That resident tenant Hatred has claimed.

And Domnus Hypocrisy joins Domnus Deceit,

While Fraud aspires to have a high status.

The old monks, not long ago, planted fruits of love;

The new order now bears those of hatred.

    The rule of Saint Bernard or Maure no longer suits,

But now displeases our new fellow monks.

Greedy, proud, and envious, they stand against it,

And now decline to bear the order’s rule.                              340

So Slander banished Benedict from the cloisters,

So Gluttony, Temperance, and Falsehood, Faith.

Abbot Easy is there, whom pliant cloisters follow,

So the order’s weak shadow cloaks weak men.

That which was spirit is now only worthless flesh,

And Domnus World attends to every need.

Chapter 8 

     Here he says that errant canons as well as monks should be censured for their excesses. 

     Just as decretals state, in similar cases

You should logically give the same judgment.

All those designated religious in the Church,

Possessors as well, are reckoned the same.                            350

Just as sinful as monks in a similar case,

Therefore, are canons whom error misleads.

But now, as it happens, many prune back their rules,

Which, trimmed, fall almost still by their new law.

That rigorous text that their founder had written,

They nowadays weaken in their glosses.

They think it enough to have a holy order’s

Name, but do little that the order asks.

     If the name of canons is derived from “canon,”

You couldn’t prove it by their behavior.                                360

When people are watching, they pretend that they are

Saints, but often their rule settles for less.

Underneath they wear white clothes, but on top of them

Black outer garments cover up the white.

But their deeds will show that they are the opposite;

Without, they feign white, but, within, act black.

I’m not speaking about those who keep their cloisters

In order to meditate without show.

Nay, I speak of those who, on the inside, search out

The world, while outside they bear heaven’s badge.                         370 

Chapter 9 

     Here he tells how the religious living in wickedness are the most wretched among all men whatsoever. 

     I think monks are born in less felicitous hours

Than others, unless they’re perchance good men.

For while alive a professed monk dies to the world,

Since he’s not able, like another man,

To enjoy outside pleasures; but should he, within,

Desire the world, he’ll lose heaven’s rewards.

To have neither a present nor a future life

He thus stands, whereby he is twice wretched.

He dies dead to this life, then by his second death

He may learn that he’s lost his other chance.                         380

So he dies to the world—for by the order’s rule

He gets no joys from it while he’s alive—

And unless he contemplate but God in his heart,

And is joyous, he’ll not have heaven's place,

I don’t know what fool is more stupid than the monk

Who denies himself his reward in both.

He simply wastes his time, whose present life denies

Joys, and whose afterlife holds no heaven.

Chapter 10 

     Here he tells how each one who wishes to enter upon the profession of religion is obligated deep within to forsake all the vices of the world and to acquire and observe the virtues of the soul. 

     O comrades who have sworn to a cloistered order,

I’ll sum in brief what your task is and why.                           390 

Having been taught, I have pondered the saints’ writings,

Which your teachers ought to keep more in mind.

Saintly words avail most when they’re plainly revealed;

Therefore, you monks, you must behold what’s there.

You have vowed, brothers, you have vowed; maintain your vows,

And fulfill the work that you have promised.

You have vowed to the Lord that you will change your ways;

Since God’s chosen you, abide in God’s love.

Monks ought to maintain a rigorous way of life,

Not grieve to bear hardships in their season.                         400

The work is menial but the work’s reward is great;

It goes quickly; the rewards are endless.

Hence holy monks, committed totally in mind,

Should cleanse their sins with weeping and wailing.

     Now let live humble who before had dwelt in pride,

Whoever had been lustful, let be pure.

Let every man who sought wealth, strove for high office,

Find every useless honor henceforth vile.

To one who joyed in feasts and in the board’s riches,

A sober dinner now shall give scant food.                            410

He shall shun the world’s delicacies, though they please.

For sweet things certainly will ruin his taste.

Who used to be gay in his extravagances,

Now let him wash his sins away with tears.

Let the chatterbox be still, the hothead cool down,

The jealous spew out envy’s dire venom.

Whom the sword and rapine have previously pleased,

Shall now be merciful and love mild peace.

Whosoever swelled up, flattered by windy praise,

Let now consider men’s praises nothing.                              420

And who always used to harm others savagely,

Let learn to suffer bitter injuries.

He who was quick to trials, headlong to quarrels,

Let bravely bear another’s reproaches.

Let bill and coo nowadays the doves who have fought,

Their former anger no longer prevail.

Let your brief angers be sinless, that rage won’t know,

At all, the doings of your inner mind.

This true conversion, brothers, merits forgiveness,

It works to appease an offended God.                                    430

Chapter 11 

     Here he tells how religious especially ought to avoid the companionship of women.

     Shun the discourse of females, holy man, beware

Lest you entrust yourself to raging fire.

For a mind captured by the love of women is bound,

And cannot reach the peak of the virtues.

What can you possibly gain from talking with them?

You’ll come a monk, leave an adulterer.

Therefore, unless you’ve fled the poisonous serpent,

You’ll be bitten when least you expect it.

Each and every woman kindles the fire of lust;

If one should touch her, he is burnt at once.                          440

Ponder the books of ancients, and patristic works,

And grieve that holy men have fallen thus.

Did not woman get man outlawed from the blessed

Abode, and become the source of our death?

Let thus the good shepherd keep watch, and everywhere

Drive ravening she-wolves from the cloisters.

     Preserve the faith: how do your responses help you,                    

Shepherd, who cede the swift she-wolf the fold?

Checked by a voice, she often stops chasing a lamb,

Which, when the shepherd’s voice falls still, is lost.             450

The she-wolf assails many sheep, and, by her wiles,

Will lay the fold waste when the shepherd lags.

Just as, driven by hunger and eager for blood,

The greedy wolf snatches the unwatched fold,

The old serpent who violated paradise

Wants to violate the holy cloisters.

Let shepherds drive the she-wolves off, lest the flock fall

Into their maws, which are never sated.

Shepherds, look to preserve the fold; beware she-wolves,

Lest they stain the cloisters with your flock's blood.             460

They strike down souls, and they dispatch many to hell;

No plague is more to be feared by the monks.

     Woman, the death of the soul, should never come near

To monks; keep her far from the sacred choir;

Let a woman be kept far from a troop of saints;

Even if she can’t win, she’ll start a war.

Therefore, O monks, beware lest the sin of the flesh

Erode in dalliances the soul's virtues.

Why does someone blush if I see he acts badly,

When he should blush all the more since God sees?             470

If the shire judge should know what he’s done, he would fear;

Why is he not afraid that the Lord knows?

So when the foe prompts deadly evil in the monk,

And tries a thousand ways to deceive him,

Let him believe God's always present everywhere;

He can’t think that he can hide if he sins.

He knows and sees everything, nothing gets past Him,

All things are always revealed to His eyes.

If He’s still and defers, and does not punish yet,

He will, and be the Just Judge of merit.                                     480

Therefore, let brief and empty pleasure not concern

Monks; rather. let them cultivate God’s law.

Let them do that for which they’ve come, fulfill their vows,

Lest the foe have a place in the cloister.

Let them read, work, and pray in their separate turns,

Never be away from sacred studies,

Be always zealous in useful, worthy matters,

For sloth is a most pernicious danger.

The tinder of lust, the occasion of evils,

Makes ready a wicked place for their souls.                          490

Chapter 12 

     Here he treats more or less summarily about those matters in the profession of religion which

in the end must be strictly observed according to the inviolable rules of the founders. 

     Who stores up the saints’ ancient teaching in the heart’s

Vault, and vows the order’s rules at the start,

Knows well that in the cloister he must shun the world,

In which he now, nonetheless, claims a place. 

O good cloisterer, who quit the world, don’t return

To it again, nay flee what it teaches.

Do not seek a soft couch where the flesh is pampered;

Let cloister be luxury; the book, joy.

Let your heart grieve; your hand. be free, your fast, frequent,

Your love not be unchaste, nor honor vain.                            500

Let water be your drink; food, meager; clothing, coarse,

Let your back be scourged; sleep, brief; rest, cut short.

Bend your knee, beat your breast, pray ever with head bared,

Seek God, spurn the world, and flee from evil.

Face to earth, let your mind cling to heaven, your tongue

Speak from humble heart and sound humble words.

He who sows words with prayers, and lacks a faithful heart,

Tills barren shores, for they’ll be profitless.

Not the voice but the prayer, not the chord, but the heart,

Not asking but loving, sings in God’s ear.                             510

     Let humble mind, open eye, chaste flesh, pious heart,

Upright faith, and firm hope show you the way.

If you wish to taste heaven’s sweet varieties,

It’s needful that you first drink the world’s myrrh.

Subject yourself to the Prior with humble heart,

Be peaceful in the order without plaint.

To obey the Prior is the monk’s highest virtue,

To bear the rule’s yoke and deny himself.

Do not let your vile clothes, your lowly place vex you,

Often these things stir up your order’s fools.                         520

Who debases and considers himself lowly,

Both fears and flees from a fleeting world’s heights,

He is both wise and the one closest to heaven,

Bears not a hollow monk’s name emptily.

     The Lord’s law be your rest; the flesh, your offering; the world,

Your exile; heaven, your home; God, your life.

Bear irksome orders given, take and willing do,

Be thus in the Lord a religious man.

What the Abbot urges you, though a chore, perform

Nonetheless patiently, if it’s lawful.                                     530

Don’t think it base, though it is, and be satisfied,

Because your spirit will be pure in Christ.

Since youngsters come under an old Prior’s commands,

And can’t act against the rule’s authority,

Let Priors handle boys gently, in lawful ways,

And with a humble heart win a bad lad.

Observe that the first yoke chafes a ladened bullock,

And a new saddle irks a fleet stallion.

Thus a harsh rector aggrieves a youngster, and gives

A reason constant grumbling stirs his breast.                         540

Hold these texts in your mind’s chambers, O monk, and, chaste,

Be dead to the world and alive to God.

Earn your perpetual rest with a little labor,

And summon lasting joys with a few tears.

For if the flesh’s grief is nothing to you now,

There’ll be peace and rest ever without end.

Chapter 13 

     Here he talks about women in a nun’s habit who receive the profession of their order under

the veil of a sacred community, but do not observe continence. 

     I’ve finished writing the sins of the errant monk,

And I’ll sing you woman veiled in the Church.

An order suits men, when properly recruited,

To be secluded and seek heaven’s realm.                             550

It is likewise appropriate for pure women

Beneath the veil to keep chaste vows to God.

As a sacred order binds monks, it binds, too, nuns,

And both shine by their merits before God.

But if frail women should go astray in cloisters,

They contend with sins unworthy of men.

For a female foot can’t stand like a manly foot,

Nor coordinate its own steady steps. 

Neither learning nor sense, constancy nor virtue

Flourish in women as they do in men.                                   560

But whether for their fragile substance or nature,

You see female morals are unstable.

Those whom an order thinks are wise, we see often

That they are pregnant by their foolish acts. 

And they who know Scripture fall more often than all,

By the indiscreet sin of a layman.

Since they read the text simply, and ignore the gloss,

They think they do what the Scriptures allow.

Scripture’s lesson teaches them to try everything;

Thus, since they read all, they want to try all.                        570

To wax and multiply are the laws of Nature,

Which God wrote with his tongue at creation.

These Scriptures of God's they wish to keep, to render

Nature’s usual laws with pious mind.

     Women strive after forbidden things, but rarely

Do what’s allowed without grumbling inside.

But nuns are more accomplished with certain Scriptures,

And patiently do what these bid them do.

It is written that seeds which good earth doesn’t take

Do not bring forth fruit but wither away.                                            580

But a nun also is such earth as lies open,

For Ceres there is multiplied tenfold.

And so, since frail women take on onerous weight,

Sometimes they reasonably seek leisure.

It happens therefore that on Venus’ day they take

Meats, because they have a fussy stomach.

For Venus trusts to Genius her freeborn pupils’

Platters, since he’d himself cook for her nymphs.

But a gullet oft sated grows heavy and swells,

Then, oppressed by the weight of food, it hurts.                    590

The venomous lump that toxifies the belly

Is so heavy it instils fear of death.

But the dish that’s taken secretly, where there’s no

Light, often harms and causes grave distress. 

Chapter 14 

     Here he tells how bishops by their visitation, during which they say they correct them, often

make veiled religious women weaker. 

     Venus and Genius now teach the cells they govern

To keep the flesh's laws, not the cloister's.

Genius is the convent’s warden and confessor,

And sometimes holds a prelate’s position.

Under guise of law, he visits those whom he rules

In cloister, lawlessly coming to beds.                               600

Although in a furred cape when he gives instruction,

He vigorously serves them naked law.

By Genius' judgment they are stoned for their sins,

But no fatal stroke is pressed upon them.

O the cleric’s virtue when he’s keeper of souls,

How many blessed priestly deeds we see!

Just like another God, he makes whole those he smites,

Lest a report should fly forth from the cell.

The father holy, so is mother, but the babe

Is holier, since to the cloister born.                              610

I should think this type of sin is most damnable,

Were it not that a woman lightly falls.

You shall not try their strength, therefore, because you know

That a slight cause can break a fragile thing.

For unless a young woman is always guarded,

She’s frail as Nature teaches her to be.

When a new branch begins to grow in the green bark,

Any brisk breeze will snap the tender thing.

In cloisters where wise discretion is the watchman,

The wheat field is enclosed by high hedges.                          620

The first instance of this frail flesh was made of mud;

Its spirit came from the mansions on high.

The spirit is willing, the flesh weak; therefore don’t

Seek to be alone with a lone woman.

A virgin should not stay alone with a lone man;

Though she’s not touched, rumor reports a sin.

As in the cloisters, let a guard be in the fields;

Let the play be proper and the work apt.

Let nuns be allowed, without shame, the diversions

Which modesty, laws, and their rule allow.                           630

Let thus waywardness not corrupt frail veiled women,

And gentle reins aid them with guiding hand.

     What’s it to me if a wife, by guile, fool her man,

Who knows naught of his wife nor sees her deeds?

But I am amazed at her guile who deceives him

In whose sight all the ages are revealed.

If men’s brides be sacred, the more the brides of Christ

Should stay, by sacred custom, pure for God.

A girl is dressed in black garments, her hair cut off,

When at the start she first becomes a nun.                                       640

Her flesh wears mourning outside, so her soul within

Be lovely and grow white, full of God’s love.

Since she’s black on the outside, she’ll become scorned filth,

And not God’s girl, if she’s blacker within.

But all her external blackness, when she stays pure,

Is a sign that her character is white. 

Chapter 15 

     Here he talks about the praise of chastity, which greatly suits women professed in a religious

order. 

     O how beyond all praise virginity does shine,

Which trails the lamb through all of heaven’s fields!

Wedded to Godhead, it shines on earth, forsaking

The bodily acts that Nature teaches.                                  650

An impure woman reeks, a chaste one smells faultless;

The one clings to God; the other, a corpse.

Heaped three-fold with a hundred blooms, flowered garlands

Adorn the virgin’s head in God’s presence.

The virgin’s status transcends the angelic troops,

Counts more in heaven than a three-fold crown.

By John’s witness, a virgin’s mind soars before God

Higher, eager like an eagle for heights.

As a rose growing out of thorns surpasses them,

So the virgin’s status exceeds the rest;                                   660

Just as a more precious white pearl pleases the more,

So, too, the cloistered virgin sworn to God.

For such a nun is worthier of the cloister

And holier when she maintains her vows.

But anyone who seeks cloisters beneath a veil,

Shall be sanctified by the rule she serves.

If she’s been a good woman, it makes her better,

And ever adds good morals to her ways.

Although defiled before she’s veiled, who chastely lives

From that point on will have no prior sin.                              670

Thus men aren’t allowed to violate hallowed nuns,

For a sacred veil bears chastity’s sign.

Presuming to defile the bride of another,

How serious a judgment there will be!

But know: who violates cloisters sins more gravely,

Presuming to defile the bride of God.

Chapter 16 

     After he has dealt with those in a possessory order who offend against their vows, he must

talk about those who wander about in the order of mendicant friars He talks first about those

who, aspiring to worldly gain under the pretense of poverty, have taken ownership of almost all

the earth. 

     When he was upon earth, not all whom Christ gathered

To him were true to God’s transforming law.

But it’s not right that the sin of the apostate

Should afflict those who worship the true faith.                    680

There is no place so fruitless that there’s no useful

Plant mixed in with the undesired weeds. 

Nor is some place so fruitful there’s no unwanted

Noxious plant amidst the good and useful.

Just so, there’s no broad assemblage of righteous men,

In which there’s no mingling of unrighteous.

Likewise, their deeds show those friars that are called saints,

And those who will have to be forgiven.

I don’t want to blame all for the sins of a few,

Nay, let each one be seen for his merits.                                690

But I, messenger to those driven by error,

Bear words the voice gave me that need be said.

As a shepherd parts sheep from goats, an order parts

Those it thinks are righteous from the wicked.

This voice’s message has more that I’ll write, for those

Whom the order designates transgressors.

I don’t wish to put on Peter crimes which Judas

Committed; let each bear his own burden.

I say an order’s duties were saintly at first,

And its initial founders, pious men.                                       700

That friar remains blessed who imitates them,

Who, renouncing the world, seeks to have God,

Who takes the cloister’s poverty and goes beyond 

It, and patiently bears the order’s rule.

For such a man's praiseworthy by his high merits,

Because the earth is renewed by his prayers.

But who hides in the order, form without content,

Who exhales sermons and breathes in riches,

To such modern-day men this book proffers its words,

Just as the peoples’ voice provided them.                         710

     The throng of friars overflows with mendicants,

From whom, ebbing, Regula Prima flees.

That sort grow soft who used to bear by order’s vow

The hard things necessary to please God.

First they give themselves a name that claims they're 'headless,'

And say they're paupers, to whom all bring wealth.

The friars swear that they’re the disciples of Christ,

And follow his example’s every law.

Their mendacious oath says this, but that's just what suits

Them, as they say who know Sacred Scripture.                      720

Now they are like men who own nothing of their own,

And yet, in pauper’s guise, hold everything.

If there will be grace or damnation for these friars

I don’t know, but all the world teems with them.

The pope is in their hand, who eases their order’s

Rigors and opts to allow many things.

And if the pope’s power itself denies their suits,

Their perverse order slyly approves them.

There’s neither king nor prince nor magnate in the world,

Who does not confess his secrets to them.                             730

     And so mendicants outrank lords, and from the world

They take, silent, what their rule flat forbids.

I’d say that these aren’t disciples, but rather gods,

Whom both life and death bring guaranteed gains.

For each wants the interred dead bodies of worthies

To whom he clung, confessor, here on earth.

But if a corpse is indigent, he won’t claim it;

His piety knows nothing without profits.

They don’t want to do baptisms, for they won’t till

Or herd without a profit in their hands.                                  740

Just as a merchant will buy every sort of goods,

That he can take much profit from them all,

So a greedy friar embraces all the world’s

Affairs, to joy in various profits.

They’re those whom the grasping world does not abhor, but

Loves, and it’s delivered them their status.

It’s obvious that they are more corrupters than

Reformers; their true name is in their deeds.

A pharisaical scion is grafted on the vine,

And its fruit is most bitter to the taste.                                   750

Chapter 17 

     Here he talks about those friars who, hypocritically rebuking the people’s sins when

preaching in public, nevertheless are devoted in private to pleasures and delights.

     A friar’s devoted hypocrisy sows sermons,

So that on earth his crop of profit grows.

He roars frightful words when he damns sinful practice

In the town square, as if he’s God’s servant.

And, like Satan’s servant, he glosses and remits

Those sins when he tarries in private beds.

And those whom his deep resounding voice first aroused,

His sweet nothings later oil in their ear.

And thus a sinner ministers sins to others,

And then takes profits for fostering vice.                                760

The friar knows well that when sin withers away,

His profit dries up for eternity.

Say where a friar comes thrice without taking gain;

He won’t return a way he's had bad luck.

If you take the sins from the friars’ foundations, 

Their lofty house will topple by itself.

     O how the words of the prophet Hosea are

Come true, who speaking truly, once said this:

“A certain tribe will arise in the lands, who’ll eat

The people's sins and know many evils."                          770                               

We see in our days that this prophecy has been

Fulfilled, and by it are meant the friars.

Whatsoever’s been necessary for their food,

Fate ministers it all to them from sin.

There are no tender morsels that ever refuse

Friars a bite if they are confessors.

You see that doves are wont to come to spotless roofs;

A dirty tower doesn’t get such birds.

No courts but those of magnates give hospice quarters

To friars these days where they wish to stay.                         780

Ants never make their way to empty granaries,

Nor wandering friars come when wealth’s been lost.

Forgetful of the blooms it previously bore,

They scorn the thorn when the roses are gone.

So, too, friars spurn the benefits of friendship

With one once rich, when he can give no more.

     Many are friars in name, but few by the rule;

As some say, Pseudo preaches in that case.

Their clothing looks poor, but their money box is rich;

Beneath their holy words, they hide vile deeds.                     790

Thus poor without poverty, saintly without Christ,

There are now “good” men lacking in goodness.

They shout “God” with their mouth and in their hearts adore

Gold, whose ways everywhere they want to know.

The devil has subjected all beneath their feet;

They claim hypocritically they keep naught.

So he who preaches “spurn the world” owns worldly things,

Whilst sheep’s clothing conceals the fearsome wolf.

And thus the plebs, enchanted by fictions, will find

Outwardly holy whom guile grasps within.                           800

There’s scarcely one who reproaches the other’s fraud,

But each promotes yet more beguiling schemes.

So, corrupted by the same vice, they’re more driven,

And with their frauds they infect the whole earth.

At the least, may the Lord repress those whom he’s known

These days to sin against the age-old faith.

I don’t ask they perish, but, broken, be mended,

And live up to the role the order grants. 

Chapter 18 

     Here he talks about those friars who, as if exempt from the yoke of their order, zealously seek

the highest chairs in the university, for the reputation of this world and in order that they become

more entitled to hear confessions. 

     Let he who is the leader become the servant,

An example of which Christ provided.                                  810

But when he who calls himself Christ’s disciple earns

High status, he does not behave that way.

Though he keeps the marks of the poor mendicant, lo!

The friar aims at a place of honor.

He longs to take the name of Master in the schools,

When, exempt, no regula restrains him.

He has a room alone, makes what’s common his own,

And then thinks no cloisterer his equal.

Since cloisterers owe their masters veneration,

And ought to bend their necks down to their feet,                 820

Pride and arrogance hide beneath theology,

When their order tries to lead, not be led.

Then they penetrate the most eminent chambers;

There is no court whose gate is closed to them.

Seeing multi-colored displays, the chameleon

Changes, and acquires its many colors.

Like it, the friar, pondering what men desire, 

Wishes to become a peer among peers.

Since a court senses the friar is like itself,

The prelate’s rules vanish when he arrives.                           830

He wanders around outside and ransacks within,

No work nor place is unbeknownst to him.

Now doctor, now confessor, now a go-between,

He puts his hand to all things high and low.

Like the Lord’s spirit, the friar wafts everywhere,

And comes to beds when husbands are not home.

Thus, the man away, the impious false friar

Enters, and claims himself the other’s role.

So he comes, enticed, to the bedecked bed’s chambers,

And oft he’ll be there for the first pickings.                           840

So Solomon was born of her who wed Uriah,

When a pious intruder took his place.

The friar’s devotion fills in for the husband,

And, swelling the family, he fills the halls.

The one beats the bushes, the other gets the bird;

One sows the ground, the other reaps the field.

They both run in the race, but who was far behind

Is the one who unfairly takes the prize.

So the husband often takes in others’ labors,

But the end is not profit but delusion.                                    850

The husband believes and joys that he’s had offspring,

But not one fingernail belongs to him.

The hypocrite prays sacred verses with the man,

As if God rose with the words from his mouth.

With the wife he sings Venus’ praises, and fulfills

His office in the goddess’ high honor.

Thus his labors down low craft a structure up high,

Whose wretched fabrication needs night’s help.

     O the friar’s compassion aids and entwines all,

And bears another’s burden patiently!                                    860

See, he has come to sanctify not just our souls 

But also our bodies with his labors.

He is not the lord’s confessor but the ladies’,

Who beguiles them more than Titivillus.

He’s a confessor like the thief gallows display,

Since he snatches our rights from a woman.

He’s a confessor who turns a bad thing to worse,

For, washing them, he dirties matters more.

Skin for skin, a friar will give all that he owns,

Himself and his property, for our wives.                                   870

O who shall render due reward to such a man,

God or the devil? Last words are binding.

For the end of sin fetches the wages of death,

When an old sin is filled with a new shame.

Of those who, living, perform so many wonders,

The names are written in the book of death.

     Nature has decreed something among bees I feel

Worth remark, with which friars should be marked.

For if a bee stings, he must pay for his offense,

Since he will no longer have his stinger.                                880

Then he stays home in his hive and flies forth no more,

To make some honey from the field’s flowers.

O God, if the adulterous friar, likewise,

Would lose his bloated pricker when he stings,

That he could no longer harvest blooms in women,

Nor wander from his house into the world! 

Because, free from the cause, he would then be free from

The effect, in which many dangers lurk. 

Chapter 19 

     Here he tells how those friars living extravagantly are not in any way necessary to the

operation of the Church of Christ.. 

     When I think about it, I find myself wondering

For what purpose or reason it happened.                                890

Before there was an order of friars, it’s said 

The Church contained the ranks that suited it.

The pope was the prince who appointed the others,

Provided laws so they could rule the folk. 

The prelate holds his court, under him the curate,

Assuming cures, tends the people’s burdens.

The prelate’s the proprietary who bestows

The benefice, where the curate holds sway.

The curate then swears that, in the prelate’s place, he’ll

Perform assigned tasks at the time adjudged.                        900

What seems to you, therefore, the reason or the cause

The friar holds the place of another?

To bide among white birds is forbidden ravens,

Which every flock considers unwelcome,

And all laws forbid the friar who shuns his work

To bide among the church’s citizens.

     One must act more cautiously in matters of doubt,

And a case in the world is not like God’s.

Should one usurp worldly rights, the force of the law

Reins him in, does not let him go astray.                             910

If another should take my worldly possessions,

The law will then consider him unjust.

Impartial law does not allow inequity,

So that one can usurp another’s place.

One cannot seize what are another’s physical

Goods, unless he deny law’s basic rights.

But, by some law, the friar justifies the deed

When stealing another’s spiritual goods.

If he claims papal dispensation, let us see

If it was prompted or freely offered.                                      920

We know the popes never conceded on a whim

Such things, though an order often begs them.

The pope can be deceived, but He Who Sees Within

Knows whether it’s for love of gain or God.

His tongue solicits cures of souls, his mind wants gold,

So with both hands the friar grabs our things.

Defrauding our souls, he kidnaps our salvation,

And beyond that he tries to take our wealth.

That’s not what Francis sought, for, abandoning all,

He openly bore the world’s poverty.                                      930

The earth bears thorns when tillers slacken in the fields,

So Ceres brings less profit to harvests.

The Church is pierced, stabbed on all sides by envy’s goads,

Which it feels, come untimely from friars.

Thus every good plowman should uproot the thistles,

Lest pharisaical plant foul sacred site. 

Chapter 20 

     Here he tells how those friars who live immoderately are not useful in any way to the

common good. 

     Adam’s toil is not for friars, that they gain heaven

Tending their own or others' vines or fields.

Nay, they already enjoy the physical rest 

They seek, and no earthly burdens irk them.                          940

Nor do they perform conspicuous acts of arms,

By which they stoutly serve the public weal.

Thus they belong neither to the knights nor farmers,

Although both classes grant their wanderings.

Nor are friars clergy, though they try to usurp

The status, which the school’s aegis permits.

Friars take the clergy’s honor, not its burden,

By which they seek to have the foremost chair.

They don’t cure the people’s souls, nor feed their bodies;

So how do they avail the common good?                              950

As you can’t count the acorns on a broad oak tree,

You can’t count the numbers of the friars.

Nay, as a river floods, swollen by waves of rain,

Or with snow melted by warming Zephyr,

The cowled order has overflowed, but lost its force,

And ceases to go its initial ways.

If things made sense, the dearth of workers demands that

Such a lot should have furrows of their own.

     David affirms they are not involved in men’s toils,

Nor suffer the lash of positive law.                                        960

Neither royal law nor bishop’s decrees succeed,

When they seek to abate the friars’ excess.

The world loves those things which are its own, and therefore

Brings its beloved friars prosperity.

They do not plow, weave, reap nor store up crops in barns;

The world feeds them no less on that account.

So their hearts rejoice, are not wearied with sorrow,

Since they consider the earth heaven’s van.

The friar has succumbed to his heart’s desires, and

What he seeks fulfills his course in the world.                       970

What honor would Hector’s son have had, forsook he

Arms and boasted, foolish, his father’s deeds?

What is Friar Apostate worth, if he acclaims

Saint Francis, whom he declines to follow?

With their false words, the friars obscure the world’s sense,

And, without light, conceal their cursed ways.

There's error in the disorderly order's shade;

The new sacred order is nigh possessed.

But honor is due to those in a proper order

Who keep Francis’s required mandates.                                980

Chapter 21 

     Here he talks about those friars who frequently entrap into professing their order, by the enticement of misleading recruitments, incautious lads, of an age that lacks discretion.

     I suspect that none of the friars is an adult

When he takes his vows in the beginning.

Yet it’s not as if Francis was in his childhood

When he was drawn to take his order’s vow.

Pliant youngsters, taken by a smooth tongue’s stories,

Were not the first ones to venerate him.

I think Francis had arrived at his adulthood,

When he took up his task with knowing heart.

And I think his order gave God like followers

By his eager teaching, not plea nor price.                              990

But the old use is gone, for skillful deception

Now attracts children, who know nothing then.

So an order in infancy coddles children,

Is, like a stepmother, but a semblance.

     As bird calls from a fowler lures birds to his snares,

So sound from a friar’s mouth draws children.

As a bird is caught, unaware of the trap's fraud,

So boys fall for the friar's hidden fraud.

And since the old friar could thus ensnare the boy,

The brother should have the name of father.                       1000

So, born from guile, the offspring follow the father,

And add their own to the paternal wiles.

And so, by itself, one root infects a hundred

Branches, which bear the world the fruits of fraud.

For a boy beguiled by an old friar beguiles

By that same example, when he’s grown old.

So later they deceive who first had been deceived,

And fraud flourishes, multiplied by fraud.

The friars’ numbers wax large, but their order wanes, 

When a wretch rejoices in wretched peers.                            1010

“Woe unto you who have traversed the earth to make

One man convert,” God himself has declared.

That was said of Pharisees, but these days I can

Say it about friars with their new law.

Chapter 22 

     Here he talks about the apostasy of the order of mendicant friars, especially by those who undermine the courts of virtually all magnates with the feigned simplicity of their hypocrisy, and very often cause incalculable errors by their fabrications. 

     As much good follows everywhere the good friar,

It happens that much bad follows the bad.

For there are three masters, one of whom each man serves,

By whom he desires himself to be ruled:

God, the world, and the apostate devil, whose load

The friars bear, having joined his order.                      1020

God’s rule doesn’t know him, nor does any free

Knightly service give him worldly status.

He doesn’t have God, nor can he possess the world;

Thus, Satan’s own, he submits to his yoke.

Each apostate, the flawed agent or abettor

Of sin, nourishes what evil he sees.

Solomon is witness that such a man is harmful,

And commits vile sins of his own devise.

Where such a one goes in the world, by art or skill

He accomplishes much that should be feared.                       1030

No wall hinders, no enclosures can withstand him,

And each dead end is a throughway to him.

He encircles the entire earth by sea and land,

To find everything that can please him most.

     He labors in frauds, composes guileful speeches,

Piles up, expands, and multiplies his tricks.

He plots lawsuits, inflames quarrels into anger,

Nourishes grudges and fosters envy.  

He bursts the bonds of peace, disturbs the agreements

Of fellowship, and rips apart good faith.                                1040

He promotes unchastity, urges loss of shame,

Wedlock’s break-up, stains on the marriage bed.

Pretending good faith, he puts on an honest face,

All the more carefully to cloak his fraud.

But promising good faith, he causes damages,

And if he gives out gifts, it’s to deceive.

Under his coarse wool, he wears finely spun linen;

His face’s candor hides his guileful heart.

When his tongue and venomous lips disguise their words,

He makes honey venom, venom, honey.                                1050

As sinners’ acts hide beneath virtuous men’s guise,

So also a man becomes a foul ape.

Swelling with pride, he often feigns a humble show,

He whom God’s spirit has privately fled.

Whatever honest virtue is in the order

Francis founded, this one's eager to ruin.

He paints over all things and, with his made-up face,

Deceives, while his guileful heart lurks within.

     You will find written that the ostrich wears feathers

Equal to the plumes of heron and hawk.                                1060

But its wing is not capable of such swift flight,

And marks it a fraud that pretends to fly.

The hypocrite, too, simulates gold deeds without,

But, within, his evil mind makes leaden vows.

Indeed there are many such who color their words,

Who gratify our ears, sound golden words.

They’re leafy with words, but there’s no fruit in their deeds;

They convince simple minds with sweet talking.

But the temple of the Lord excludes such, abhors

And shuns the polished trappings of their words.                  1070

Their tongue declaims the golden words of the poets, 

Which painted language gilds--but beware them.

The word of faith is plain and earns good men merit,

A shifty word preaches against God’s plan.

God scorns all eloquence, when a polished surface

Disguises poison with honeyed language.

Who sows good words, but acts badly, sins shamefully,

For performance should follow holy words.

They whom higher learning nurtures sow obstacles

Colored with words in subtle polished tones.                          1080

     Often profit or empty honor’s attainment

Makes the friars’ sermons more culpable.

Under the guise of wheat, they often pour out tares,

When prideful teaching strives for love of praise.

The zealous minds of these skilled men ascribe results

To their own merits and beget schisms.

Python or Magus is schismatic, since he roils

The truth you believe and urges falsehoods.

But wisely stop up your ears against the voices

Of enchanters, lest your heart cleave to them.                       1090

They’re not proper friars nor faithful in their love

For the Church of Christ, as it’s kept by them.

The defective Synagogue, which does not instruct

The full truth, symbolizes their teaching.

That’s why that prideful multitude of volumes which

The Synagogue holds often harms others.

They are not the true citizens of the church; nay,

Handmaid Hagar, treacherous mother, bore them.

Let Hagar thus go away, Sarah beget Church’s

True clergy, and the Synagogue depart.                                  1100

Piety and love planted the seeds of the friars,

Whom ambitious Frenzy at present tends.

Friar Hatred is there, who loathes the bonds of peace,

Whose lineage has taken the road from hell.

For this professed man has broken his cloister vows,

Does not allow his peers to be at peace.

But to the friar who perceives himself in sin,

And does not stop, to such I say these words:

“The bad man’s sin should not erase the just man’s praise,

For light shines with more glory in shadows.                        1110

Let each one bear his own burden, the wicked man

Take blame for his actions, the good man, praise.”

Chapter 23 

     Here he tells how these mendicant friars give themselves over to wandering the world from

place to place, seeking in their idleness more sumptuous delicacies. He also talks about their

unnecessary structures, which are built in an extravagant manner as if by the powerful men of

this world. 

     Dispersed Jews figure the diaspora of the friars,

Whom random wandering drives through the world.

Neither one stays fixed in place, but constantly moves

Around and changes places everywhere.

Thus the impious friar treks all through the world,

Nor is there a house where he won’t seek place.

In guise of a pauper, he takes alms as plunder,

And with a sheep's fleece hides his wolf’s muzzle.               1120

No one deserves goods without labor, and therefore

Friars roam all lands in expiation.

Perhaps because heaven has closed its lofty gates,

They travel seas, rivers, and all the earth.

This I read, that a plant frequently moved rarely

Thrives, but often suffers a barren fate.

But no rule on the earth lacks for an exception,

For the friar’s motion makes him prosper.

Wheresoever he guides his steps through desert wastes,

The world follows him and does him service.                       1130

As a packed snowball typically grows bigger when

Rolled, and in a short time is much enlarged,

The world enriches the friar when he travels,

And what he touches sticks fast to his hand.

The friar likewise strikes his wicked deals with the world

In such a way they’re most always secret.

     There can appear to be some virtues in many

Who possess neither virtue nor goodness;

They’ll voice suchlike, but the sense will be unseemly,

And much that is unwholesome satisfies them.                     1140

Their devotion is contrived to ornament the church,

As if such things hold signs of salvation.

A friary built for them rises above all,

As they pile up stones and favor carved woods.

It has double doors, fancy porches, halls, such and

So many rooms you’d think it the labyrinth.

With many doorways, a thousand different windows,

A thousand marble columns prop it up.

Their house will be built high and wide, with walls adorned,

Agleam with many paintings and designs.                            1150

Indeed, each cell gleams in which a useless friar stays,

Adorned with a carving’s painted beauty.

Doorposts have carved symbols that will endure ages,

With which they think to bind the people’s hearts.

Pretending to be Christ, they seek the world, pursue

It and aspire, secretly, to its praise.

Their holy devotion, disguised in such a form,

Is feigned, and their house is witness to it.

But he who sees all, and probes the depths of the heart,

Knows that such work is prepared for the world.                   1160

Yet Parisian history teaches by examples,

A man should be content with less a house.

     No officer of the king has homes of his own

More splendid than the chambers of the friars. 

Their garment’s plainness will not characterize them

So much as their houses’ pomp shall brand them. 

Their house holds vigil in its pursuit of building

A church, eager in flesh, dull in spirit.

Thus the friars’ holy devotion shows outside,

But inside hides a heart’s empty likeness.                              1170

Such men without fruit, in whom is much impiety

But little faith, are like unto the elm.

Say, friar, with your foul heart, what’s it profit you

That you have built so many fine houses?

Be the Lord’s house, adorn it with sacred morals,

Be religion's tiller and love virtue.

All comes clear in the end; feigning outside won’t work,

And you'll get no rewards inside from it.

If the fleeting praise of the world should last your days,

That praise will be shame when you lose heaven.                1180

You belong to the order; let its rule be yours;

Leave and what you do henceforth is in vain. 

Chapter 24 

     Here he tells how those things which used to be virtuous have been generally subverted by

sinful men, not only in the order of the mendicant friars, but also in all the degrees of the clergy.  

In fact, he says that the manner and rule, especially these days, are privately observed according to certain notions of Burnel. 

     Only in their clothing are friars different;

Otherwise, in their manner, they are peers. 

None of the rules remain that had been made before,

For the new order has new-fangled laws.

For just as the friars’ order is now set loose,

The standards of the Church become like new.

Yet the sacred order which Friar Burnel once

Ordained abides, and it is resurgent.                                      1190

Now I won’t disclose, nor do I wish to disclose

All the decrees that Burnel determined.

But I’ll speak now, in turn, of two that he ordained,

And they are at the present time like laws.

     The first mandate confers on you every delight;

Whatever on earth pleases, it allows.

If you’d buy and sell, you can be a merchant, but

If you’d fornicate, you can fornicate.

Whatever more that the flesh desires are the rights

Owed nowadays to our blessed friar.                                     1200

Enjoining further, he bade by the second law

What’s harmful to the flesh be kept afar.

All that is spiritual in turn is held vile,

And flesh ought to have its delicacies.

Let loose your heart, for indeed no one shall bind you;

Go forth your ways wheresoever you will.

Decked in blandishments, Burnel’s newfangled order

Is held worthy, since it wants what men want.

Never mind about Bernard, or, for that matter,

Benedict, but let Burnel be my Prior,                                     1210

Where physical repose thrives, where the worshipper’s

Tongue, slothful in prayer, is almost silent.

So when the order wants to help us with its prayers,

I leave croaking to frogs, and that is that.

Should evil come upon us, I believe that these

Men of the clergy are the greatest cause.

For indeed, who is able to bring us good times,

When God’s order dies among the cloistered,

And heavenly devotion flees other clergy?

That’s why salvation flees us everywhere.                             1220  

B-Text 

Since our intercessors discordantly deceive,                          1221

We people stand, untaught, lost in the world.

      What is a body, by itself, without a soul,

What’s a pious clergy do but help us?

But he who’d sort out the clerics’ kind or species,

Shall scarce spot a good man from the top down.

So there’s darkness for light, death where the rule of life

Should teach people the safe road to travel.

I've said about the clergy, as others have said:

It’s caused the world more sin than all the rest.                  1230

Without a shepherd, the flock is scattered, and lo!

It seeks out, on all sides, new fields of sin.

A-Text

Now because the clergy’s lot strays from Christ’s order,      *1221

The world prescribes what God Himself forbids.

     Because your school, Burnel, is common in the world,

Everyone there's deceived from head to foot.

But when blessed Gregory's school shone upon earth,

The true faith thrived and bore all fruits in peace.

But now there’s a new Arius, like Jovinian,

A Doctor urging schism in church schools.

Where there’s light, there’s darkness, where a rule of life should

Teach peoples to take the straight way, there’s death.           *1230

So let every good man, gentryman or yeoman,

Pray for the clergy and send God his prayers.