142 (B.13.144) Caste coles … speche: I.e., “Make his face red” with shame before your kindness; see Proverbs 25:21–22, which St Paul quotes and explicates at Romans 12:20, the climax of a passage (12:14–21) on returning good for evil. Medieval explicators thought of the coals as either one’s enemy’s hot penance or one’s own hot love: see Whiting C337. Alanus, Distinctiones, PL 210.731: “Carbo, proprie; est charitas, unde Jacobus [Paulus]: ‘Hoc faciens, carbones ignis congeres super caput ejus’ [Rom 12:20], idest patientia tua accendens eum in charitate divina” (Coal, besides its proper meaning, is love, whence James [Paul], “Doing this, thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head,” that is, by your patience setting him on fire with divine love). (In the Latin, I have inserted a semicolon after “proprie” to indicate what the PL text obscures, that Alan’s “proprie” is a brief nod to the literal word before he moves on to figurative meanings; he is not saying that “coal properly means love”; see Tuija Ainonen’s compelling explanation, 2008:21–27.)
Alle kynde speche: Speech that is “all kind,” entirely kind, with reference probably to the various sorts of unkind speech criticized in the surrounding verses in Proverbs 25: false witness in 18, unwelcome jollity in 20, backbiting in 23, contentiousness in 24. Say only nice things! The phrase may be a compression of “all kinds of kind speech”: say all the nice things you can think of.
148–51 And whan he hadde yworded thus … y couthe no mo aspye: The disappearance of Piers is like Christ’s from the dinner table at Emmaus, Luke 24:31, described at 12.123–33 (B.11.234–45), where Christ like Piers in this scene is dressed as a pilgrim. The comparison deepens the association of Piers with Christ. Cf. Aers 2004:41–42 and Gruenler 2017: 225, 240. Cf. also the disappearing guest—an angel—at St Gregory’s banquet: Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 1.176–77. See Stith Thompson, Motif Index D2188, Magic disappearance. 150 resoun ran aftur: We forget that Reason is a significant figure at the dinner, since he was last mentioned in line 28. Why he leaves now is anybody’s guess.
Finally, Patience (152–69, B.13.133–71)
152–69 And pacience properliche spak … techest (B.13.136–71a “At youre preiere … Pacientes vincunt”): As I have said above, what Patience says has much more integrity in the B version, without Piers to say half of it for him. It celebrates love with élan in the multiple ways I have explicated above in the portion of his speech later given to Piers (136–48), then turns to riddling mode in 151–57, challenging the doctor to vndo the riddle, and going on to specify, still with élan, all the dangers, natural and political, that the charitable needn’t fear, that the patient will conquer. It is a brilliant tour de force, well calculated to get a rise out of the doctor. The slightly longer C counterpart of these lines maintains the élan, though it drops vndo it: it cuts out the riddles but then adds a new one at 161, sharpens the political boast by speaking of winning all fraunce without bloodshed, and raises the temperature of B’s Caritas nihil timet. See the enlightening discussion in Galloway 1995:95–97.
What effect does the speech have on the rest of the poem? Its immediate effect is to put the doctor and his power mode to rout, and to align Conscience firmly with Patience. From now on, the conscientious way is the patient way—the way of the Samaritan, and of Christ himself. At 21.109–14 (B.19.109–14), it is clear that “Love your enemy,” Patience’s message, is Christ’s special message. I argued at the end of my 1995 essay that Conscience’s utter commitment to patience explains his decision to admit Friar Flatterer to Unity in the final scene of the poem. And Will too is committed to patience from now on.
152 properliche: “Appropriately, correctly,” MED; “with due modesty,” Kane, Glossary. But its emphatic position before the verb suggests the more pregnant meaning, “in his own person, himself.” Piers has just praised patience and the patient, and now that Piers is gone, Patience himself speaks. And what he says is anything but modest, as the doctor sees. “I could win all France without shedding a drop of blood!”
B.13.136 so no man displese hym: “As long as no one will be offended.” The doctor, it turns out, will be very much offended.
B.13.139 a lemman, loue was hir name: See C.20.185. The word lemman calls up the Song of Songs. Cf. its use in two contemporary passages clearly derived from the Song of Songs, Miller’s Tale, A3700, 3705 and Pearl 763.
B.13.140 wordes … werkes … wil: This series of terms goes back to Holy Church’s answer to Will 1.84–85 (B.1.88–89, A.1.86–87); see B.14.14 and note; B.15.198–200, 210; Alford 1988:52, 55; and Burrow 1969.
B.13.141 loue leelly þi soule: On this important Christian concept (which boils down to “do well”), see the notes to 17.125–49 (sixth paragraph), 17.140a, and 17.143–49; and cf. the doctor 15.112 above.
153–56a That loueth lely … vincunt &c (B.13.148–50 Ac for to fare þus wiþ þi frend … no catel but speche): Though these passages correspond in the two versions, they say quite different things. In B, Patience rounds out his lemman Love’s remarks on loving one’s enemy by adding, rather superfluously, that you don’t have to cast coals on the head of your friend, who unlike an enemy does not want to annex your land but only wants you to talk to him. (Galloway, though, argues [1995:96] attractively that speech between friends is an arena that allows for riddling: thus the riddles that follow.) In C, Patience picks up where Piers left off, and goes in an entirely different direction from B, confirming Piers’s praise of love by asserting that one who loves has no interest in annexing land—but asserting (since patience conquers) that by the peaceful means of patient love he could win all France, if he wanted to. He will continue that boast—see the note below to 157–69 (B.13.158–71a).
155 bruttenynge of buyren: Cutting men to pieces. In this line about war, L wittily imports the diction of alliterative battle poetry, as Chaucer famously does for battle scenes in KnT A2601–16 and The Legend of Good Women 629–53.
B.13.151–71 Wiþ half a laumpe lyne … Pacientes vincunt (Cf. C.153–69 That loueth lely … techest): The structure of this riddling passage in the B version is quite clear, even if the riddle is not. Herwith and it 156 refer to the bouste, and so to the riddle. Vndo it 157 means “solve it”; þerInne means “in it.” It 163, 164 (either the bouste or the riddle or just “love”) and þis redels 167 complete the references. The riddle ought to be the equivalent of dilige inimicos, caritas nichil timet, and pacientes vincunt, which are all roughly synonymous: see Lawler 1995:93. If you love your enemies you will not fear them; if you heap coals on their head, that is, if you are patient and loving toward them, you will conquer them. Indeed, in 15.159 the it of B.13.163 is replaced by pacience, which is itself clearly apposed in 15.164a to Caritas. Thus charity = patience (1 Cor 13:4: “Caritas patiens est”) = the answer to the riddle. Skeat: “The general solution to the riddle … is Charity, exercised with Patience.” Its simplest expression is perhaps “love,” an imperative verb (dilige) that must be completed by an object: when “love” is transitive, that is, when you love another or others or your enemies, you’ve got Dowel in a nutshell. The passage reprises Holy Church’s teaching on love, 1.141–204 (B.1.142–209, A.1.130–83); see also the words of Peace after the Harrowing, 20.456–58 (B.18.413–15). (The specific solution is “cor,” heart, as Galloway 1995 showed; see note below. Ex vi transicionis is a common grammatical phrase: a transitive verb governs its accusative object “by the power of transitivity” [Kaske 1963:38, Middleton 1972:179 n12, 181; Alford 1982: 755; Bland 1988].)