John of Salisbury at Entheticus minor 243–48 cites Prov 16:32, and says that patience “crushes wars with an unwarlike hand.” Prudence in Chaucer’s Melibee, whose whole aim is to persuade her husband that patience and forgiveness will be the most effective vengeance, cites Prov 16:32 and James 1:4 consecutively (B.15.14–15). Donaldson 1949:175 n2 and 180 n2 cites James 5:11, “Beatificamus eos qui sustinuerunt” (We account them blessed who have endured) (which repeats James 1:12 in other terms), and “Burdach’s interesting note,” which I have drawn on above, and which also cites the Sententiae of Publius Syrus, “Feras dolorem; vincitur patientia” (Put up with sorrow; it is conquered by patience) (ed. Friedrich, 1880:85, sent. 6).
See also Chaucer, FrkT F773–75, “Pacience … venquysseth … Thynges that rigour sholde nevere atteyne”; ParsT I661, “seith the wise man, ‘If thow wolt venquysse thyn enemy, lerne to suffre’” (translating “Si vis vincere, disce pati,” Walther, Proverbia 16974; see Hazelton 1960:367–68); and Troilus 4.1584, in Criseyde’s letter to Troilus, “Men seyn, ‘The suffrant overcomith,’ parde” (“Qui patitur, vincit,” Walther, Proverbia 24454). Note that Chaucer’s speakers always quote somebody: “thise clerkes,” “the wise man,” “men,” as if none of them want to be caught treating it as an original idea. Likewise Roman de la Rose, ed. Lecoy 3199–3200, “J’ai bien esprové que l’en vaint/Par sosfrir felon, et refraint,” I have well proved that one conquers and reins in the wicked one by suffering.
For other uses of the phrase by English writers, see Whiting P61, S865, T213, W264; Skeat may be right to say that Langland was thinking of the Distichs of Cato, Sententiae xl and Disticha 1,38 (which Burdach also mentions, and Hazelton treats, 1960:357)—though not when he called it part of holy writ. The brilliance of the phrase is precisely that it goes to the heart of both the Christian ethic of love and self-sacrifice and Cato’s Greco-Roman prudence. L seems to be aware of its protean nature; of its six appearances in the B version (13.135, 171; 14.33, 54; 15.268, 598), he omits or significantly changes in C all but one (B.14.54, C.15.253).
Piers jumps in (C only) (130–51)
137–51 Quod Peres the ploghman … y couthe no mo aspye: In B.13.133, Conscience has resolved the discussion of Piers’s impugning of learning by looking to his coming at some unspecified time in the future. In C, where we were told at the start of the passus (33–37) that he is present, he breaks suddenly into the debate here, uttering Pacientes vincunt and then a single long sentence (138–47), asserting belief in the power of love, that in the B version (13.137–47) is reported by Patience as having been “once” taught him by his girlfriend Love—and then he disappears. This is undeniably more dramatic, and keeps the mysterious Piers alive in our minds, but does not seem to me to add any depth of meaning to the dinner scene. It is hardly more than a distraction, and undermines somewhat the speech of Patience, which has more integrity in the B version.
137, 156a (B.13.135a, 171a) Pacientes vincunt: The overall meaning of this motto “the patient win” in the passage as a whole is “Love your enemies.” That is, assuming that we are in conflict with our enemies, and want to conquer them, the way to do it is to love them: that is a “beating” that will make them “bow” (147, B.13.147). See B.11.379, “Suffraunce is a souerayn vertue, and a swift vengeaunce,” and everything else that Reason says there (and in C.13.194–212) to Will about suffrance. (Piers and Patience are hardly the first figures in the poem to urge loving one’s enemies; see Study’s remarks at B.10.194–204, a passage omitted in the C version; but Wit has introduced the idea as Dobet at 10.189. See also B.11.178–215. Actually, the idea, if not the phrase, was first introduced by Holy Church in her long speech to Will on love in passus 1: the Son died but “wolde … hem no wo þat wrouhte hym þat peyne”; he was “myhtfull and meke and mercy gan graunte/To hem þat hengen hym hye,” 1.165–70 [A.1.143–48; B.1.169–74].)
In addition, however, the literal meaning “the patient win” has a local application that varies each time. At B.13.135a it signifies that Patience, the third and last speaker, is likely to win this contest of wits: as Conscience says, he probably knows things that the two clerks don’t know. In the course of Patience’s speech in B, and the combined Piers-Patience speeches in C, “vincunt” comes to mean “win” in the sense of “gain”: the enemy’s love, 143 (B.13.145), but further, power, land, and possessions: 154, 166–69 (B.13.167, 170–71). Thus when the motto is repeated at the end of Patience’s speech, B.13.171a, and by Piers in C at 156a, it means “the patient gain” or “the patient win power.” Not, of course, that the point is to be greedy: both speakers speak in riddles, and Patience emphasizes the paradox of patience’s power by carrying out to its logical political conclusion the aggressive denotation of his verb. He attaches it to all the objects it would ordinarily be attached to in the commonplace assumption it silently replaces, namely that agentes vincunt: wars, power, land, money.
Finally, given these local applications in the other places, it is likely that when, in the C version, Piers uses the motto to open his speech at 137, it refers not just to the “overall” point, “love your enemies,” but also to the two lines that follow, and makes clear that they constitute a rejoinder to what, for all the courtesy of “For Peres loue þe palmare ʒent” (130), amounts to a charge by Clergie in lines 130–36 (B.13.124–30) that Piers has undermined his profession. Piers argues back, “The patient win, and I intend to maintain (thus winning out over Clergie) that what I said (when I impugned crafts, namely, dilige deum et proximum) was right.” The implication then is that Piers is patient, whether because he represents Christ, who suffered the passion (and said dilige deum et proximum), or because he and Patience, who apparently arrived together at the dinner, share the same ideas.
138–47 “Byfore perpetuel pees … blynde mote he worthen” (cf. B.13.140–47 “Wiþ wordes and werkes … blynd mote he worþe”): What Love says in B.13.140–46 is a complete imperative sentence, a series of injunctions: Love your soul, learn to love your enemy, cast coals on his head, try to win his love, lay on him with love till he laughs at you. In Piers’s mouth in C, the sentence gets changed in such a way as to appear incomplete: I shall prove and avow and never forsake that this series of injunctions—love God and your enemy, help him, cast coals on this head, try to win his love, give to him again and again, comfort him, and lay on him with love till he laughs at you—what? He never ends up saying what he will prove the injunctions will do. The answer, I think, is first to add line 147 to the sentence, as Schmidt does (though I would put a dash rather than a semicolon at the end of 146), and to see that the imperative verbs are actually conditions that will bring about the bowing predicted in 147: I will prove to you that, love your enemy and he will bow, i.e., if you love, then he will bow. It also works in B to add line 147 to the sentence, again as Schmidt does, though again with a dash: Love him, cast coals on his head, and so on—and surely he will bow. For comment on individual phrases, see the notes below.
140 disce, doce, dilige deum and thyn enemy (B.13.137 Disce … doce, dilige inimicos, 138 Disce … doce … dilige): “Learn this and teach it: love (God and) your enemies”; see B.13.142, lere þe to louye, and cf. Lawler 1995:92 and 2011:72. “Love your enemies” is the message, as the speech goes on to make clear (cf. Matt 5:44, Luke 6:27, 35: diligite inimicos). Learning and teaching are simply elements of any major injunction: we absorb it and press it on others. For example, Love taught it to Patience (in B), and he is teaching it now. On the idea “learn to love,” see 22 (B.20).208 and 206–11n. The phrases “disce diligere” and “disce amare” occur frequently in Augustine, e.g., “Disce diligere inimicum” (as in B) PL 37.1273 (Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps 99); “Disce amare Deum” (as in C), PL 38.160 (Sermo 23). See also 1 Thess 4:9, “Ipsi enim vos a Deo didicistis ut diligatis invicem,” Yourselves have learned of God to love one another.
The sentence in both versions scans as the first few feet of a