Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/237

’Tis not for us these men to crown
With state, that they may trample down
Suitors, and every cause exploit
To fill their purses by adroit
Chicanery, and shut their door
To claimants cursed in being poor.
Judges the people's servants But theirs in person ’tis to sit
Each cause to hear, and judge of it6000
With righteous care, for false or true,
With all the points that ’long thereto.
Slaves of the populace are they,
Who win full foison day by day
From mother earth, and not their will
It was to let these miscreants fill
Their maws by foul despoil. Their time
All folk should pass in peace, for crime
Judges should punish, and ’tis theirs
Themselves to mount the gallows stairs6010
And execution do on thieves,
If no man willingly relieves
Their hands thereof, for justice they
Should do whate’er the price they pay.
For since the people ’tis who ’quite
The justicers, undoubted right
Have they to justice, and a vow
These judges made thereto, I trow.
On their investment.
Thy request
Is now fulfilled, and thou mayst rest6020
Content, since I have given thee proof
Of all thou wouldst for thy behoof.”