After the Physician's depressing tale, the Host asks the Pardoner to tell a funny story to cheer everyone up. The pilgrims, knowing the Pardoner, make him promise that the story can't be raunchy; they want a tale with moral virtue. The Pardoner begins by describing all of his tricks of the trade in his work.

He explains to the pilgrims that he always uses "greed is the root of all evil" as his theme when preaching, the better to loosen the purse strings of his audience. Demonstrating the hard sell he gives when he arrives in a town, the Pardoner describes some of his relics and their curative properties. All the relics are fake, he admits, but he doesn't care a bit.

Money A2Z

He also makes sure the pilgrims understand that he only preaches to earn money, so much so that he doesn't hesitate to take it from even a poor widow with starving children.

He's says he's a great speaker, tossing in some Latin phrases to punch things up a bit, and citing the Bible and philosophy to sound serious.

He makes the point that many good sermons come from evil intentions, so his love of money shouldn't make any difference. He can still inspire repentance in his audiences, even if he's only doing it to get rich.

Three friends in Flanders are the worst guys you could imagine.

Pardoners tale Flashcards | Quizlet

They drink and party all night and day, love to gamble, drink, binge-eat, flirt, swear, and generally debauch themselves. At this point, the Pardoner digresses from his story to detail the evil of all these vices. He delivers mini-sermons on drunkenness, gluttony, gambling, and oath swearing, using biblical and historical examples and showing how all of these sins are interrelated.

After the mini-sermons, the Pardoner returns to the story of the three revelers. While at a pub one morning before Mass—gasp! A young servant tells them the corpse is a friend of theirs, killed by someone named Death who's been going around killing everybody. Enraged, the three swear a pact of brotherhood and declare their intention to work together to kill this Death, who's been having a field day during the plague.

When the bartender tells them they can find Death in a nearby village, off they go to look for him. After traveling about a mile, the young men meet with a withered old man, bent over and just wasting away. They rudely ask him why he's so old. He explains that no one wants to trade their youth for his age, and although he's pleaded with the earth to accept his body, she's refused to do so.

He reproaches the young men for their rudeness. Kids these days… They respond even more rudely, threatening to hurt the old man if he doesn't tell them where to find Death; they suspect he might even be Death's spy. He tells them they can find Death under a tree around the corner. When they reach the tree, Death isn't there. Instead, there are 8 bushels of gold coins.

They can't believe their good luck and forget about finding Death in about two seconds. They decide to wait until nightfall to carry the gold to one of their homes so that no one will accuse them of stealing it.

Being gamblers, they draw straws to decide who will go to town to bring snacks and drinks, since it's gonna be a long night. The youngest draws the short straw. After he leaves, the other two buddies decide kill him when he gets back. Why split the gold three ways when you can do it two ways? The other young man has a similar plan; if he can kill the others, he has all the gold for himself. In town, he buys food and wine, and goes to a drugstore claiming to need poison to kill rats.

Dosing two of the wine bottles with the poison, he returns to the grove intending to kill his friends. Instead, they kill him and sit down for a drink. They immediately die a painful and miserable death.

We get the moral of the story: Or actually, we mean "greed is bad. So that's his tale, and by the way, it's an honor and advantage for the pilgrims to have a Pardoner on the pilgrimage, for he can absolve them of their sins in the event that anyone meets with an untimely death, like falling off their horse. They wouldn't want to die in a state of sin, right? So the Pardoner invites the pilgrims to step up and buy his relics or purchase a pardon or two to use along the way.

He suggests that the Host is the most in need of penitence, so he should be the first to buy something. He can even kiss his relics. The Host is not amused. He tells the Pardoner he'd like to cut his balls off and use them for relics.

But instead of putting them in a fancy reliquary he'd enshrine them in pig turds. Before the two come to blows, the Knight steps in and tells them to calm down, make up, and get on with their journey.

English 12 ''The Pardoner's Tale'' Quiz Flashcards | Quizlet

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Premium Test Prep Learning Guides College Careers Video Shmoop Answers Teachers Courses Schools. SHMOOP PREMIUM Summary SHMOOP PREMIUM SHMOOP PREMIUM. Intro Summary Prologue, Lines 43 — 79 Lines 86 — Lines — Lines — Lines — Tale, Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — Lines — The Pardoner's Tale Three friends in Flanders are the worst guys you could imagine.

Under a tree—get it?

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