The Ayenbite of Inwyt (Remorse of Conscience) / A Translation of Parts into Modern English

by active 14th century Dan Michel; active 1279 d'Orléans Laurent

The sin of the deed of lechery is divided into many boughs according to the state of the persons that do it, and goes upwards from bad to worse. The first is of man or of woman that have no bond, either of widowhood, or of wedlock, or of orders, or of religion, or of another kind. That is the first deadly sin in the deed of lechery. The second is with a common woman. This sin is harder because it (she) is older, and because such women are sometimes wives, or (women) of religion, and forsake no one, neither father, nor brother, nor son, nor kin. The third is of a single man with a widow, or the converse. The fourth is with a single woman. The fifth is with a married woman; that is the sin of adultery, which is very wrong, because there is breaking of troth, which the one shall bear to the other; afterwards there is a sacrilege, when one breaks the sacrament of marriage; sometimes desertion of heir befalls, and false marriages. This sin is sometimes doubled, when it is of a married man with a woman that has a husband. The sixth is when the man, (that) has his own wife, does a thing that is forbidden and inordinate, against the nature of man and orders and marriage. And with his own sword a man may slay himself. Also he may with his own wife sin deadly. Therefore God smote to an evil death Onan, Jacob’s nephew. And the devil that was called Asmodeus strangled the seven husbands of the holy maid, Sara, who was afterwards the wife of young Tobias. For all the sacraments of holy Church one shall use cleanlily and with great honour. The seventh is of a man with his godmother or with his goddaughter, or of a godson with the children of his sponsors, for those children cannot come together without deadly sin, not even in marriage. The eighth is of a man with his kin, and the same sin is increased and lessened according as the kinship is near or far. The ninth is of the man with the kin of his wife, or, on the contrary, of the wife with the kin of her husband. The same sin is very dreadful. For when the man hath fellowship with any woman, he can no longer in marriage have any of her kin, and if he takes any the marriage is naught. And if he takes a wife and afterwards [another woman] on the side of her kin, he loses the right that he had to his wife, inasmuch as she may not afterwards dwell with him, except she beg for it before. The tenth is of women with hooded clerks. This sin is increased and lessened according to the hoods and the esteem. The eleventh is of a man of the world with a woman of religion, or, on the contrary, of a woman of the world with a man of religion. The twelfth is of a man of religion and a woman of religion, and this sin is increased and lessened according to the state of the persons that do it. The thirteenth is of prelates, who should be a pattern and example of holiness and of cleanness to all the world. The last is most foul and most loathsome, which is not to be named. The same sin is against nature, which the devil teaches to man or to woman in many ways, which are not to be named because of the matter, which is too abominable. But in shrift the same shall name it, to whom it is befallen. For as much more foul and more horrible the sin is, the more shrift avails. For the shame that one has in the telling is a great part of the penance. This sin is so hateful to God that He did rain burning fire and stinking brimstone upon the city of Sodom, and of Gomorrah, and caused five cities to sink into hell. The devil himself, who brings it about, has shame when man does it, and the air is envenomed with the deed.

THE SEVENTH HEAD OF THE BEAST.

The seventh head of the evil beast is the sin of the mouth; and because the mouth has two offices, whereof the one belongs to the swallow, as to meat and to drink, the other is in speech; therefore the same sin is divided principally into two parts: to wit, into the sin of gluttony, which is in meat and in drink; and into the sin of an evil tongue, that is, foolish speaking. And first let us speak of the sin of gluttony, which is a vice that the devil is much pleased with, and (which) much displeases God. Through such sin has the devil very great power over man. Whereof we read in the Gospel, that God gave the devils leave to go into the swine, and when they were in them (they) drowned them in the sea, as a sign that gluttons lead the life of swine, and the devil has leave to go into them, and drown them in the sea of hell, and to cause them to eat so much that they burst asunder, and to drink so much that they drown themselves.

When the champion has felled his man and holds him by the throat, with great difficulty he arises. And so it is with those that the devil holds through sin, and therefore blithely he runs at the throat, like the wolf to the sheep, in order to strangle him, as he did to Eve and to Adam in the terrestrial paradise. That is the fisherman of hell, who takes the fish by the throat and by the chin. This sin much displeases God. For the glutton works too great a shame when he makes his god of a sack full of dung, that is, of his belly, which he loves more than God, and in it remains, and serves it. God commands him to fast; the belly says: ‘Thou shalt not, but eat long and continuously.’ God commands him in the morning to arise; the belly says: ‘Thou shalt not; I am too full, it behoves me to sleep; the church is no hare, it can well await me.’ And when he arises, he begins his matins and his prayers and his orisons, and says: ‘Ah, God! what shall we eat to-day? whether one shall find anything that is worth (eating)?’ After these matins come the praises, and he says: ‘Ah, God! lo, we had good wine yester evening and good meats.’ And after that he beweeps his sins and says: ‘Alas!’ he says: ‘I have been nigh dead to-night; too strong was that wine last evening. My head aches; I shall not be at ease until I have drunk.’ Thus, too, the evil man says. This sin leads man to shame. For first of all he becomes a tavern-goer, then he plays at dice, then he sells his own, then he becomes ribald, a whoremonger and thief, and then one hangs him. This is the scot (payment) that one often pays.

This sin is divided, as by St. Gregory, into five boughs. For in five ways one sins by meat and by drink; either in that one eats and drinks before time, or too greedily, or out of measure, or too ardently, or too plenteously. The first bough, then, of this sin is to eat before time, and too foul a thing it is of a man that has age when he cannot wait for the time to eat; and of great lechery of throat it comes that a man who is strong and whole of body without reasonable cause yearns for meat before the right hour, as does a dumb beast. And many sins come of the same habit. Then it comes about that such a man says, that he cannot fast or do penance; for he has said this: ‘I have too bad a head.’ And he says true, for he has made it such, and an evil heart also, which that sin has made, and has caused him to break the fasts, which is a great sin. And if he damned himself by himself, thereof no matter; but he will have fellows, that do as he does, whom he draws from well-doing, and leads them with him into hell. For he causes them to break their fasts and do their gluttonies, wherefrom they would keep themselves, if there were no evil companions. For the drinker and the whoremonger, among the other evils that they do, [commit] one sin that is properly the devil’s, when they withdraw [others] from well-doing. They say that they cannot fast, but they lie. For little love of God possesses them that I speak of. For if they loved the true joy of heaven as much as they do the idle bliss of this world, as they fast because of temporal needs until night, as well might they fast until noon for God, if they loved Him so much. But they are just like the child that will always have the bread in his hand. And thou shalt know that as one sins by too early rising in order to eat, so also one sins in supping late. The folk, then, that love to sup late, and to keep awake at night, and waste the time in idleness, and go late to bed and rise late, sin in many ways. First, in that they waste the time and misspend it, when they make of the night day and of the day night. Such folk God accurses by the prophet. For one shall by day do good, and by night praise God and pray; but whoever lies abed when he should arise, sleep he must when he should pray, and his service hear, and praise God; and thus he loses all his time, both by night and by day. Afterwards in such vigils one does many evils, as play at chess or at games of hazard, and one says much scorn and folly, and thus the wretch wastes his time and his wits and his goods, and angers God, and harms his body, and still more his soul.

The second bough is excess and want of moderation in meat and in drink. The same are properly gluttons, who devour all, as does the kite with his sparrow. There is great sense in observing moderation in meat and in drink, and great health, for many people die, and often there come great sicknesses. But whoever will learn this moderation, he shall know and understand that there are many ways of living in the world. The first lives by the flesh, the second by his jollity, the third by his physic, the fourth by his honesty, the fifth by what his (their) sins require, the sixth by the spirit and by the love of God.

Those that live by the flesh, as says St. Paul, slay their souls, for they make their god of their belly. The same observe neither reason nor measures, and therefore they shall have in the other world torment without measure.

Those that live by their jollity will keep their foolish fellowships, so that they neither know how, nor are able to observe measure.

Those that live by hypocrisy, who are the devil’s martyrs, have two measures, for the two devils that torment the hypocrite are much opposed to each other. The one says to him: ‘Eat enough, until thou art fair and fat;’ the other says to him: ‘Thou shalt not, but thou shalt fast until thou art pale and lean.’ Now, it behoves to have two measures, one little and (one) scant that he uses before people; and another good and liberal, which he uses so that none sees; this holds not the right measure. He whom covetousness leads has such a measure as the purse wills, who is lady and hostess of the house. Then shall we between the purse and the belly of the glutton have a fair strife. The belly says: ‘I will be full;’ the purse says: ‘I will be full.’ The belly says: ‘I will that thou eat and drink, and that thou spend.’ And the purse says: ‘Thou shalt not; I will that thou keep and retrench.’ Alas! what shall he do, this wretch who is thrall to two such evil lords? Two measures make the wight mad: the measure of the belly, in other men’s house good and liberal; and the measure of the purse, of her who is sorrowful and sparing.

Those that live by physic observe the measure of Hippocrates, which is little and narrow; and it often befalls that he that by physic lives by physic dies.