The Canterbury Tales

The Host likes the tale of Melibee much better than the tale of Sir Topaz, and remarks that he wishes his own wife were as patient with him as Prudence is with her husband. Instead, his wife eggs him on when he’s bouncing ne’er-do-wells from his pub and berates him for insufficient violence when he gets home.

Changing the subject, he invites the Monk to speak, first giving him a few back-handed compliments on how well he seems to be fed at the monastery where he’s supposedly living in holy poverty, and how many children such a well-favored man would have fathered if he hadn’t taken a vow of chastity. The Monk, unflappable, agrees: He’ll tell a tragedy of fallen kings.

He starts at the very beginning, with the falls of Lucifer, Adam, and Samson—briefly telling the familiar first two tales, but lavishing detail on Samson’s rise (as a blessed and mighty warrior) and fall (betrayed by his lover Delilah and imprisoned by his enemies until, with his God-given strength, he pulled their own temple down around them with the very pillars to which he was tied).

He moves into the classical world with the tale of Hercules, who performed mighty mythological labors and held the very heavens on his shoulders.