‘Put the Load Right on Me’: Langland on The Incarnation (With Apologies to the Band)
Ralph Hanna
For heuene myȝte nat holden it, it was so heuy of hymselue Til hadde þe erþe yoten his fille, And whan þis fold flessh and blood taken Was neuere leef vpon lynde lighter þerafter … (B 1.153–56)1 Since this quotation returns Kane Donaldson's over-edited text to the forms archetype Piers Plowman B, a translation is in order: ‘Love inherently heavy that heaven could not restrain until had completely poured itself out on earth. when done this, human form earth, there never linden leaf (or more flighty)’.2 The passage contrasts weight divine longing sacrifice with their strikingly paradoxical capacity ascend, ultimately become ‘ledere lordes folk | mene…bitwene kyng commune’ (159–60). thus exhibits mystery inherent trinitarian theology, Son as coexisting Father expressing, love—which impels incarnation—the mercy justice: ‘Loue…þe lawe shapeþ: Vpon man for hise mysdedes mercyment he taxeþ’ (161–62). final halfline, course, raises an additional paradox, ‘tax’ here release.
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