The Canterbury Tales: The Pardoner's Tale Lines 603 – 617 Summary

  • I think that Avicenna [a medieval philosopher and healer] never wrote about more horrible symptoms of poisoning than these two wretches suffered before their death.
  • Thus ended the life of these murderers, and the life of the poisoner, too.
  • O cursed sin full of cursedness! O traitorous homicide, O wickedness! O gluttony, lust, and gambling!
  • You blasphemer of Christ, with villainy and great, habitual, prideful oaths!
  • Alas, mankind, how does it happen that you act so cruelly toward your Creator, who made you and redeemed you with his precious Heart-blood? You're so dishonest, and so unnatural, alas!