• In like manner Chaucer, “Persones Tale,” pp. 227, 337, reproves ill-keeping and ill-giving:⁠— “Avarice, after the description of Seint Augustine, is a likerousnesse in herte to have erthly thinges. Som other folk sayn, that avarice is for to purchase many erthly thinges, and nothing to yeve to hem that han nede. And understond wel, that avarice standeth not only in land ne catel, but som time in science and in glorie, and in every maner outrageous thing is avarice.⁠ ⁠… “But for as moche as som folk ben unmesurable, men oughten for to avoid and eschue fool-largesse, the whiche men clepen waste. Certes, he that is fool-large, he yeveth not his catel, but he leseth his catel, Sothly, what thing that he yeveth for vaine-glory, as to minstrals, and to folk that here his renome in the world, he hath do sinne thereof, and non almesse: certes, he leseth foule his good, that ne seketh with the yefte of his good nothing but sinne. He is like to an hors that seketh rather to drink drovy or troubled water, than for to drink water of the clere well. And for as moche as they yeven thcr as they shuld nat yeven, to hem apperteineth thilkc malison, that Crist shal yeve at the day of dome to hem that shul be dampned.” ↩