As he “slombered in a slepyng,” the poet of Piers Plowman quickly sees the vision representing the dilemma of the medieval mind: two castles standing and all the world of men between them… So, to which kingdom will each man belong?
As I bihelde in-to þe est • an hiegh to the sonne, / I seigh a tovre on a toft • trielich y-maked; / A depe dale bineth • a dongeon there-inne, / Wyth depe dychys & derke • & dredfvll of sight. / A faire feld ful of folke • fonde I þer-betwene, / Of all maner of men • þe mene & þe riche, / Worchyng & wanderyng • as þe world asketh.
Prologus, ll.13-19
More recently, this preoccupation has fallen away, and the two castles are forgotten. No thought is given to the “What must I do?” which, instead, has given way to comfortable ambivalence and the “How must I seem?”
“Let be be the finale of seem,” says Stevens. And, though the mists of modernity would cloud my view of the “toure on a toft,” I would not forget the medieval dilemma, and I would sacrifice the “How must I seem?” in order to keep before my eyes the “What must I do?”
me·men·to mo·ri 