Quote:The tower is God, the dungeon is the dwelling of the Evil One.

Quote:Chapter XX: "Piers The Ploughman" -- Continued

WHEN Langland fell asleep upon the Malvern Hills he dreamed a wondrous dream. He thought that he saw a "fair field full of folk," where was gathered "all the wealth of the world and the woe both."



"Working and wondering as the world asketh,

Some put them to the plough and played them full seldom,

In eareing and sowing laboured full hard."



But some are gluttons and others think only of fine clothes. Some pray and others jest. There are rogues and knaves here, friars and priests, barons and burgesses, bakers and butchers, tailors and tanners, masons and miners, and folk of many other crafts. Indeed, the field is the world. It lies between a tower and a dungeon. The tower is God, the dungeon is the dwelling of the Evil One.

Then, as Langland looked on all this, he saw



"A lady lovely in face, in linnen i-clothed,

Come adown from the cliff and spake me fair,

And said, 'Son, sleepest thou? Seest thou this people

All how busy they be about the maze?'"



Langland was "afeard of her face though she was fair." But the lovely lady, who is Holy Church, speaks gently to the dreamer. She tells him that the tower is the dwelling of Truth, who is the lord of all and who gives to each as he hath need. The dungeon is the castle of Care.