God Spede the Plough (original: God spede ƿe plouȝ: & sende us kǫꝛne Inolk) is the name of an early 16th-century manuscript poem which borrows twelve stanzas from Geoffrey Chaucer's Monk's Tale.
It is a short, satirical complaint, listing the various indolent members of the clergy who will demand a share of the ploughman's harvest, rendering his work futile.
The work contains a possible allusion to 1 Corinthians 9:10: "...when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing the harvest." This verse is used by St Paul in an argument that the Apostles' food and other basic needs should be supplied by the laity of the early Christian church. The poem also deprecates taxation and issues the same sort of complaint as that found in the Second Shepherds' Play.
Famous quotes containing the words god and/or plough:
“The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.””
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 1:30-33.
“And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)