Piers Plowman the A Version: Prologue, lines 57-85

Abstract

The Prologue, which is where the selected passage originates from, introduces us to Will and the location of the vision—an unknown land with a tower on a hill, a prison below, and a mass of people in between. At this moment in the poem, Will is looking at the people in between and focusing on the friars that he sees. The idea of corruption in the church is a major theme in Piers Plowman, and I felt it had great potential for a more modern translation because corruption is still very much present in our world today. When writing my translation, my main goal was to keep the essence of Piers—his anger at the injustice and corruption occurring—while using more modern language that could be understood by anyone regardless of religious background. I chose not to do a critical translation with some contemporary choices because when I read an ancient text I enjoy seeing remnants of the time that it was originally written in, and I wanted to preserve the feeling that the text is older but still available to modern readers.