The poet himself is called in next, and recites "Sir Thopas"; a parody of the rhymed romances of chivalry. It bores the Host, "No more of this," he cries, "you do nothing but waste our time," so the poet tells "a litel thing in prose," the Story of Melibeus. It is not so very "litel," and is freely translated from the French of Jean de Meung. There are about twelve thousand words in Melibeus, which is full of quotations from all sorts of learned books and moral lessons: the Host, however, thought it would have been very edifying to his ill-tempered wife, a fierce woman. The Monk now "tells sad stories of the deaths of Kings," and of the miseries of celebrated persons from Lucifer, Adam, and Hercules to Nero, and Croesus, and Julius Cæsar. Chaucer borrowed from the Bible, Boccaccio, Boëthius, the "Romance of the Rose": in fact he seems to have begun the collection while he was young, taken it up again after his visit to Italy, and finally wearied of the long series of miseries; so he makes even the courteous Knight rebel, and cry, "Good sir, no more of this". He wants more cheerful matter. The Host is of the same mind, and calls one of the three priests that ride with the Prioress. Since the Monk is described as a jolly hunting clergyman, it is not clear why Chaucer put old work about mortal tragedies into his mouth. The Priest tells a form of the tale of the Cock, his Hens, and the Fox, which includes a ghost story, a good deal of learning and morality, and a great deal of humour and of brilliant description. The tale is in ten syllabled verse; and in Chaucer's late manner, as is the Physician's Tale, the Roman story of Virginia, (as in Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome"). Chaucer in part translates the version of Jean de Meung in the "Romance of the Rose". The tale is told with sweet pitifulness and delicacy. The Pardoner, with his wallet Bret-ful of pardoun come from Rome al hoot, "pardons hot from Rome," and with a large collection of spurious relics of Saints, is an odious kind of sacred swindler, but his tale is pointed against avarice. It is derived from a very old story found in Asia as well as in Europe. The Pardoner begins by a satirical account of his profession and of his practices, his greed and lust, his spoiling of the poor, before he preaches his moral tale of the evils of greed. For, though myself be a ful vicious man, A moral tale yet I you telle can,