give me any thing. My purchase is th’ effect of all my rent. Look how thou ridest for the same intent To winnë good, thou reckest never how, Right so fare I, for ridë will I now Into the worldë’s endë for a prey.”
“Ah,” quoth this Sompnour, “ benedicite! what say y’? I weened ye were a yeoman trulý. Ye have a mannë’s shape as well as I. Have ye then a figúre determinate In hellë, where ye be in your estate?” “Nay, certainly,” quoth he, “there have we none, But when us liketh we can take us one, Or ellës make you seem that we be shape Sometimë like a man, or like an ape; Or like an angel can I ride or go; It is no wondrous thing though it be so, A lousy juggler can deceivë thee, And pardie, yet can I more craft than he.” “Why,” quoth the Sompnour, “ride ye then or gon In sundry shapes and not always in one?” “For we,” quoth he, “will us in such form make, As most is able our prey for to take.” “What maketh you to have all this laboúr?” “Full many a causë, levë Sir Sompnoúr,” Saidë this fiend. “But all thing hath a time; The day is short and it is passed prime, And yet have I won nothing in this day; I will intend to winning, if I may, And not intend our thingës to declare: For, brother mine, thy wit is all too bare To understand, although I told them thee. But for thou askest why laboúrë we: For sometimes we be Goddë’s instruments And meanës to do his commandëments, When that him list, upon his creatures, In divers acts and in divérs figúres: Withoutë him we have no might, certain, If that him list to standë thereagain. And sometimes, at our prayer, have we leave Only the body, not the soul, to grieve: Witness on Job, whom that we did full woe, And sometimes have we might on both the two— This is to say, on soul and body eke, And sometimes be we suffer’d for to seek Upon a man, and do his soul unrest And not his body, and all is for the best, When he withstandeth our temptatión, It is a cause of his salvatión, Albeit that it was not our intent He should be safe, but that we would him hent. And sometimes be we servants unto man, As to the archbishop Saint Dunstan, And to th’ apostle servant eke was I.” “Yet tell me,” quoth this Sompnour, “faithfully, Make ye you newë bodies thus alway Of th’ elements?” The fiend answered, “Nay: Sometimes we feign,