Piers Plowman the A Version: Passus 2, lines 38-58

Abstract

This is a translation of Passus 2 from lines 38-58 in the A Version. Visitors from all walks of life and all across the land have taken up all the lodging in town, forcing the rest to camp at the outskirts. They have all come to witness Simony and Civil pervert the sanctity of marriage by uniting the opulent Lady Meed to the devilish False. Their union would mean the total corruption of money, economic exchange, and wealth itself, plunging the world into a hell of greed and skullduggery. With this translation, I wanted to lift the tone of dirtiness, depravity, and sleaze that is evoked in the original passage and expand upon it in my translation, which mixes mechanical and governmental terminology with sexuality and disgust.