Canterbury tales
pardoner's tale
Mbongo valery
Radix malorum est cupiditas. The Pardoner was someone who was licensed to travel
about the countryside selling official church pardons. In the Canterbury tales he told the
story of three men. The three men died because of their greed. The story begins with the
men in a tavern drinking, gambling, cursing and committing a lot sins. They meet an old
man that says he has asked Death to take him but has failed, and that death can be found
at the foot of an oak tree. When the man arrive at the destination they find gold coins.
They then decided to stay there and guard the treasure. Since they were hungry, they drew
straws to see which one of them will go back to the village and bring back bread and
wine. When the one appointed to go to the village left, the others complotted to kill him
upon his return, while the one in the village poisoned the wine in the hopes of killing his
comrades and keeping the coins to himself. When the third man came back from the
village, the other two stab him to death and drank the wine which resulted in their
inevitable deaths. The three men died, thus the saying “radix malorum est cupiditas” or
“greed is the root of all evil”. They all wanted to be greedy and keep the coins for t
hemselves but instead they all died. At the end of the story, the pardoner asked the people
traveling with him for money so that their sins could be pardoned. The pardoner
condemns greed but demands for people to give him money in order for their sins to be
forgiven. The pardoner’s attitude indicates the very thing he condemns, greed.