The Monk’s Tale

The Monk’s Tale, one of the 24 stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, published 1387–1400.

The brawny Monk relates a series of 17 tragedies based on the fall from glory of various biblical, classical, and contemporary figures, including Lucifer and Adam; Nero and Julius Caesar; Zenobia, a 3rd-century queen of Palmyra; and several 14th-century kings. After 775 lines of lugubrious recital, the Knight and the Host interrupt, bored by the list of disasters.