To Market, To Market

"A Prayer for him that buyes and sels.

O Good God, what is our life but a common Mart, wherein we sel away our bodies to shame for the price of momentarie pleasure, & barter away our soules to sinne, which were bought at the dearest rate (euen thy Sonnes blood?) What are all our labours, but desperate voiages, made to purchase wealth? And what are the riches of a worldly man when they are gotten, but (as thy Prophet singeth) The weauing of a spiders webbe? The spider makes fine nets to catch 13 flyes; and the worldling wasteth his nights, & weareth out his dayes in tying his conscience full of knots to pull vp riches.

Sithence then the heaping vp of wealth is for the most part, the heaping vp of wickednesse; and that all the trauailes of our life, are but like buying and selling in a fayre, which wee beginne to day and end to morrow: so direct my steps (deare Lord) that I may neither wa~der to get goods by vnlawfull courses, nor that I may fal in loue with riches, how well soeuer they bee gotten. Let me not be one of those buyers and sellers, whom thy Sonne Iesus thrust out of the Temple: But rather one of those Merchants that sell all to follow thee.

And since to loue our neighbour is the fulfilling of the Law, giue mee grace that I may bee counted no breaker of that Law, but a keeper of it sound, dealing iustly with all men. And for that purpose, let not mine eye look vpon false waights, nor my hand be held out to take vp an vneuen ballance. Hee loseth a piece of his soule, (euery time) that robbeth his chapma~ of his measure: & he that vniustly gaineth but thirtie pence, selleth (like Iudas) euen his master Christ.

As thou (O Father of vs all) hast giuen mee two hands, so appoint 15 those seruants of my bodie to execute none but good and holy offices: Let the one hand buy honestly, and the other sell iustly. Let the left bee to lay vp wealth to maintain my bodie, and the right to distribute thy blessings to those whose bodies are in miserie. Seale vp my lips from lying and forswearing (the two poisons that ouerflow euery citie.) Purge my bosome from corruption: pull out of my heart the stings of enuy, and let me reioyce to see others prosper in the world, & not to murmure if I my selfe wither like trees in Autumne, though I lose the golde~ leaues of wealth, and be left naked with pouertie.

Keep the Wolf from my doore, & the Fox out of my bed-cha~ber, that other men may neither lye in waite to robbe mee of my goods, nor I sit vp late in the counsell of the wicked, how to deceiue other men of theirs. Be thou (O Lord) at my elbow in all my proceedings, so shall I feare to doe amisse in any. And so mortifie my affections, that euery day casting behinde my backe the comfort, the cares, the vanities, the vilenesse, the pleasures and the sorowes of this bewitching world, I may continually haue this cry aloude in my mouth, I desire to be dissolued and to be with thee. Amen."

--Thomas Dekker (ca. 1572-1632), Foure birds of Noahs arke viz. 1. The Dove 2. The Eagle 3. The Pellican 4. The Phoenix (1609), pp. 13-17

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my blog post. I look forward to hearing what you think!

F.B.

Popular posts from this blog

Draco Layer Four: The Anagogic or Mystical Sense

Image
Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence.  “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, ...
Keep reading

Talking Points: Three Cheers for White Men

Image
1. When white women (see Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine) invented chivalry and courtly love , white men agreed that it was better for knights to spend their time protecting women rather than raping them, and even agreed to write songs for them rather than expecting them to want to have sex with them without being forced. 2. When white men who were celibate (see the canon lawyers and theologians of the twelfth century and thereafter) argued that marriage was a sacrament valid only if both the man and the woman consented , white men exerted themselves to become good husbands rather than expecting women to live as their slaves. 3. When white women (see Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the suffragettes) invented feminism , white men supported them (see John Stuart Mill) and even went so far as to vote (because only men could vote at the time) to let them vote, not to mention hiring them as workers and supporting their education. And before you start telling me a...
Keep reading

How to Signal You Are Not a White Supremacist

Image
Professor Kim READ FIRST:  Why Dorothy Kim Hates Me , The Color of the House of the Lord It’s back to class for those of us who teach in medieval studies, and my medievalist colleague Dorothy Kim , Assistant Professor of English at Vassar College ( pictured in 2014 ), wants to make sure you understand the stakes . The medieval western European Christian past is being weaponized by white supremacist/white nationalist/KKK/nazi extremist groups who also frequently happen to be college students.  That does sound bad. But, wait, it gets worse! Don’t think western European medieval studies is exceptional.... ISIS/ISIL also weaponizes the idea of the pure medieval Islamic past in their recruiting rhetoric for young male Muslims. If the medieval past (globally) is being weaponized for the aims of extreme, violent supremacist groups, what are you doing, medievalists, in your classrooms? Because you are the authorities teaching medieval subjects in the classroom, you are, in ...
Keep reading

Draco Layer Three: The Moral or Tropological Sense

Image
Learn to discern. We all know what sin is, right? Right?!  Once upon a time in the desert , the hermit Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) set out to make a list of the most deadly ones, albeit he called them “deadly thoughts,” not “sins.” You probably know the list, even if you don’t think you do: gluttony, impurity (a.k.a. lust), avarice (a.k.a. greed), sadness (a.k.a. feeling sorry for oneself), anger or wrath, acedia  or sloth, vainglory, and pride (two different things).  Not quite the list you were expecting? That is because some centuries later—we’re talking ancient times here, when centuries passed like decades do now (or vice versa)—Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) revised the list, somewhat accidentally, in his commentary on Job.  Gregory had been expounding Job according to its multiple layers—yes, that’s right! Job, like Shrek, has layers! —and he happened somewhere in book XXXI to mention the “seven principle vices” to which Pride,  the “Queen of S...
Keep reading

What's in a name?

I knew it was a mistake involving myself in political commentary*, but having taken the plunge, I guess I have to keep swimming, at least until the election. One of the things that has mystified me for years is how the label "liberal" came to be associated with support for government regulation of business, e.g. environmental and worker protection measures, or even (heaven forbid) financial transactions. I know that my colleagues in political science would have an answer to this, and I suspect it goes back to sometime in the 1980s, when Berke Breathed did all those comics about the General [my bad: the Major; it's been a long time] and Milo hunting liberals in the meadows of Bloom County. But knowing the little that I do about the history of the concept of liberalism as it developed in the 19th century, I must confess myself rather confused. This is the way John Stuart Mill (as Wikipedia puts it, "one of the first champions of modern 'liberalism'") s...
Keep reading