This is such specific personification - the figure of Hunger avenging itself on the "wasters" for their idleness in the field.

vex

9:00am or after a substantial part of the day's work had been done because laborers start so early.

An ornate crucifix at Lucca in Italy was a popular object of pilgrimage.

"In the name of God, amen" (customary beginning of a will).

For let them not be written with the righteous (Psalms 69:28).

"Let them be blotted out of the book of the living" (Psalms 69:28).

A house for dead bodies connected to a church graveyard.

Friend, go up higher (from Luke 14:10).

Punish with a fine the amount of which is at the discretion of the judge.

I give you my word

Garments worn by priests to celebrate the mass

nickname for Piers or Peter

i.e. prostitute

great word :) a "cut purse" = "pickpocket"

Through Eve it was closed to all and through the Virgin Mary it was opened again

Battle-armed

A small enclosed field, or a small agricultural holding worked by a peasant.

Honor thy father and mother

do not harm your neighbors

Consciousness, moral awareness, related to but not identical with the moral sense personified in line 539.

"I would take a farthing's fee for Saint Thomas' shrine!" - referring to St. Thomas' shrine which was famous for the gold and jewels left there by wealthy pilgrims.

pay

"made ditches and dikes"

forty

I.e., an oath "By Saint Peter!"

It was customary to collect "souvenirs" from shrines one had visited as a pilgrim; here the list includes vials of holy water from St. Thomas (Canterbury), keys from St. Peter (Rome), crosses from the holy land, etc.

pagan

"Men and animals though shalt save inasmuch as thou has multiplied thy mercy, O God" (Psalms 36:6-7)

Blessed [are they] whose transgressions are forgiven (Latin from Psalms 32:1)

Oh God, you will turn and give us life (from the Latin mass)

Life's doctor

mediator

To love the Lord more dearly than you love yourself.

"Alas, I repine for a barren youth was mine." (a proverbial saying)

"Through what force faith is formed in my body and where."

ascend

"I shall set my foot in the north and I shall be like the most high"

"created ten orders" = the ten orders of heavenly beings: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, angels, and the nameless order that fell with Lucifer.

"God is love" (Latin) - from John 4:16.

This is the key question of Piers Plowman - it was one that medieval people spent much time meditating on.

on an elder tree

an unfortunate being or spirit

"Render unto Caesar" (Latin); in the next line, "What are God's unto God." (from Matthew 22:15-21).

"graceless brats"

A line from the Book of Genesis about the story of Lot (19:32): "Let us make him drunk with wine, and let us lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father."

"don't drink beyond reason"

"fend off hunger"

ease

Here, Langland is playing on the three meanings of "truth" - 1) fidelity, integrity 2) reality, actuality 3) God, the ultimate truth.

well-being

"God save Dame Emma" (presumably a popular song from the time).

Town dwellers who had full rights as the citizens of a municipality. In contrast, barons and bondmen were peasants who held their land from a lord in return for customary services or rent.

Pennies, ironically, were rather valuable coins in medieval England.

Since 1349, England had suffered a number of epidemics of the plague, the Black Death, which had cause d famine and had depopulated the countryside.

Buying and selling the functions, spiritual powers, or offices of the church. Wealthy persons, especially in London, set up foundations to pay priests to sing masses for their souls and those of their relatives.

i.e., "for the benefit of gluttons"

i.e. "pulled the wool over their eyes"

An official empower to pass on from the pope temporal indulgence for the sins of people who contributed to charitable enterprises.

Also translated as "merchandise" - in this case, friars are "selling" confession and remission of sins (which, by cannon law, cannot actually be sold).

In Langland's time, there were four orders of friars: Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites and Augustinians.

English town and site of a famous shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Virtually professional pilgrims who took advantage of the hospitality offered them to go on travelling year after year.

"staged flytings" - referring to contests in which the participants take turn insulting each other in verse.

Minstrels who deceive with jokes and fantastic stories are regarded as descendants of Judas, Christ's betrayer.

henchmen

"Who speaks filthy language" (Latin)

A better translation: "With some lush livelihood delighting their bodies." Here, Langland is criticizing the lifestyle of cloistered clergymen who enjoy food and drink while laypeople toil in the fields.

pursued

"and played very rarely"

hilltop

"nowhere that I knew"

"as if by magic"

The "sheep's clothing" referred to here may reference the physical resemblance of the habit to sheep's wool or the false appearance of innocence.

A culture dating from 2800 BCE to 2300; considered to be a "cultural phenomenon" that involved metalwork and likely shared ideas about life, religion and culture.

Here is a map of their influence:

A range of mountains in Morroco:

vault

called to arms

Roman goddess of grain; here, the grain itself. A Homeric simile compares an excited army to windswept corn.

easily moved

be gone

advise

Satan contemptuously parallels the angels' courtly deference ("distances") before God's throne and keeping a safe distance from battle.

Rumor

attempts

after

withstood

I.e., thus much (answers) was asked

pain, grief

reputation of being

responsibility

frowns

faint, dark

bearing

mourned

awe-inspiring

proves

Alights or kindles ("lights") gunpowder ("nitrous powder"), ready (next lines) to be stored in some barrel ("tun") laid up in some storehouse ("magazine") in preparation ("against") rumors of war.

notions

The faculty of forming mental images.

Attempting

skirt

Know enough to be content with what you know.

replaced

"employs" - The "golden shafts" are the arrows of Cupid that produce love; his lead-tipped arrows produce hate.

Throughout history ("present or past"), Old and New Testament worthies have "used" matrimony as a noble estate.

loves

"Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." (Genesis 1:28).

Ephesians 5:32 calls the union of man and woman a "mystery" paralleling that of Christ and the church.

surmise

sky

Pandora (the name means "all gifts") was an artificial woman, molded of clay, bestowed by the gods on Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus (who angered Hove by stealing fire from heaven). She brought a box that foolish Epimetheus opened, releasing all the ills of the human race, leaving only hope inside. The Eve-Pandora parallel was often noted.

wedding song

Forest and field divinities of classical mythology.

fashioned

The stars were thought to have their own occult influence, and also to moderate that of the sun.

foster

Having many talents and achievements; perfect, complete.

With this embedded lyric, beginning here, Eve displays her literary talents in an elegant love song, sonnetlike and replete with striking figures of circularity and repetition.

Here and elsewhere Milton leaves open the question of whether the sun moves around the earth, or vice versa.

"shade" = trees

In Hebrew, "strength of God," A tradition gave Gabriel charge of Paradise.

"Envy" = "begrudge them that?"

complained

inseparable, distinct

futile desire

resting

outskirts of a forest

Satan's excuse--reason of state, public interest, empire, etc.--is called "the tyrant's plea" in line 394.

in place of

such happiness

writhing, twisting

trunk

lynxes, leopards

stood on its hind legs

in this context, "unchaste"

Eve's hair is curly, abundant, not subjected to rigid control, like the vegetation of Paradise.

unrestrained

This has a basis in 1 Corinthians: "The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man."

This phrase underscores Milton's idea that true freedom involves obedience to natural superiors.

Nile's

equator

wine-flushed

Milton compares Paradise with famous beauty spots of antiquity. Enna in Sicily was a lovely meadow from which Proserpine was kidnapped by "glooby Dis" (Pluto); her mother Ceres sought her throughout the world. The grove of Daphne, near Antioch and the Orontes River in the Near East, had a spring called "Castalia" after the Muses' fountain near Parnassus.

clasping hands

The god of all nature--pan in Greek means "all"

well-watered

uplands

These were real golden apples, by contrast to those feigned golden apples of the Hesperides, fabled paradisal islands in the Western Ocean.

fastidious

wavy, rippling

rich earth

The Tigris flowed under the hill:

Auran is the province of Hauran on the eastern border of Israel. Selucia powerful city on the Tigris, near modern Baghdad, was founded by one of Alexander's generals ("built by Grecian kings"). Telassar is another Near Eastern kingdom.

Base men interested only in money; Milton would have clergymen no paid by required tithes or by the state, to ensure their purity of motive.

pens of woven reeds

thicket

wooded, wild

pleasing

bright

open summit

Paradise is a delightful ("delicious") garden on top of a steep hill situated in the east of the land of Eden.

"couched" = hidden

forced

The technical term for a formal pardon.

Compare this to Satan's earlier claim that "the mind is its own place" (Book I, Line 254)

always

pay

"disdained"

Reproached

pondering

to avenge

perhaps

Click here for a 3-minute summary/analysis.

A mountain in Assyria.

the sun's orbit

The moon was said to have a triple nature: Luna in heaven, Diana on earth, and Hecate in Hell.

The fifth element, of which the incorruptible heavenly bodies were made.

fitting

authoritative

used

Uriel--in Hebrew, "light" (or "fire") of God - is the angel named first among the seven angels who stood before God's throne.

feathered

"ken" = glorius vision

This passage leave open whether the sun or the earth is at the center of the cosmos.

earth's moisture

chief alchemist

drinkable

Alchemists had identified the "philosophers" stone with the urim on Aaron's breastplate; that stone reputedly could heal all disease, restore paradise, and transmute base metals to gold.

In the zodiac, Libra is diametrically opposite Aries, or the ram ("the fleecy star") which seems to carry the constellation Andromeda on its back. Note: Milton will use A LOT of allusions to constellations/astrology in the books to come....

Some try to trick God into granting them salvation by wearing on their deathbeds the garb of various religious orders.

The story of Jacob's vision is summarized from Genesis here; the stairs of the ladder (next line) allegorically represent the stages of spiritual growth.

The place where Jesus was crucified.

Religious paraphernalia. The white friars are Carmelites; the black, Dominicans; and the gray, Franciscans.

Shinar is the plain where the tower of Babel was built; the tower is a symbol of human arrogance and folly.

Giants, born of unnatural marriages between the "sons of God" and the daughters of men (Genesis 6:4) are creatures "unkindly mixed"

silver

imperfect

Both the Ganges and the Hydaspes (a tributary of the Indus) rise from the mountains of northern India. "Sercicana" (line 438) is a region in NW China.

Imaus, a ridge of mountains beyond the modern Himalayas, runs north through Asia from modern Afghanistan to the Arctic Circle.