PALMER. What helpeth will, where is no skill?
PARDONER. And what helpeth skill, where is no will[427]!
'POTHECARY. For will or skill, what helpeth it,
Where forward knave be lacking wit[428]?
Leave off this curiosity.
And who that list, sing after me. [Here they sing.
PEDLAR. This liketh me well, so mot I the.
PARDONER. So help me God, it liketh not me.
Where company is met and well agreed,
Good pastime doth right well indeed.
But who can sit in daliance,
Men sit in such a variance?
As we were set, ere[429] ye came in,
Which strife this man did first begin;
Alleging that such men as use
For love of God, and not[430] refuse
On foot to go from place to place
A pilgrimage, calling for grace,
Shall in that pain with penitence
Obtain discharge of conscience:
Comparing that life for the best
Induction to your endless rest.
Upon these words[431] our matter grew:
For if he could avow them true,
As good to be a gardener.
As for to be a pardoner.
But when I heard him so far wide,
I then approached and replied:
Saying this, that this[432] indulgence,
Having the foresaid penitence,
Dischargeth man of all offence
With much more profit than this pretence.
I ask but twopence at the most;
I-wis this is not very great cost,
And from[433] all pain without despair,
My soul for to keep[434] even in his chair,
And when he dieth, he may be sure
To come to heaven even at pleasure.
And more than heaven he cannot[435] get,
How far soever he list to jet.
Then is his pain more than his wit,
To walk[436] to heaven, since he may sit.
Sir, as we were in this contention,
In came this daw with his invention;
Reviling us, himself avaunting,
That all the souls to heaven ascending
Are most bound to the 'pothecary,
Because he helpeth most men to die,
Before which death he saith indeed,
No soul in heaven can have his mede.
PEDLAR. Why, do 'pothecaries kill men?
'POTHECARY. By God, men say so, now and then.
PEDLAR. And I thought ye would not have mit
To make them live as long as ye list.
'POTHECARY. As long as we list? nay, as long as they can.
PEDLAR. So might we live without you then.