The Canterbury Tales: The Pardoner's Tale Lines 551 – 572 Summary

  • The youngest, who's gone to town, thinks about the beauty of those bright new florins.
  • "O lord," he says, "if I could have this treasure all to myself, I'd be the happiest man on the planet."
  • And in the end, our enemy the devil puts it into his head to buy poison to murder his friends.
  • The devil finds him in such a wicked state that he has no problem influencing him.
  • His mind made up, he hurries on toward the drugstore.
  • He asks the sales clerk to sell him some poison to get rid of rats, and also because there's a polecat in his yard who's been eating his chickens.