Here followeth the Prologue of the Pardoner's Tale
Radix malorum est cupiditas: Ad Thimotheum, Sexto.
"LORDINGS," quoth he, "when I preach in churches I take pains to have a stately utterance, and ring it out roundly as a bell, for all that I say I know by heart. My theme is alway the same— 'Radix malorum est cupiditas.'
"First I announce whence I come, and then I show my bulls, one and all. First I show our liege lord's seal on my patent, to protect my body, that no man, neither priest nor clerk, may be so bold as to disturb me in Christ's holy labours; and then after that I say my say; I show bulls of popes and cardinals, of patriarchs and bishops; and I speak a few words in Latin to colour my preaching and to stir men to devotion. Then I show forth my long crystal boxes crammed full of clouts and bones; they be relics, as each man weeneth. Then I have in latten a shoulder-bone which came from an holy Jew's sheep. 'Good men,' say I, 'pay heed to my words! If this bone be washed in any well, and cow or calf or sheep or ox be swollen of any worm or worm's sting, take water of that well and wash his tongue, and anon he is sound; and eke of pox and of scab and every sore shall every sheep be cured that drinketh a draught of this well; pay heed to what I say. If the goodman that owneth the beasts will every week, fasting, ere the cock croweth, drink a draught of this well as that holy Jew taught our elders, his beasts
and his stock shall multiply. And, sirs, jealousy also it healeth.
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