The Pardoner’s Tale (from: The Rap Canterbury Tales)

My story begins at a bar, where three friends
Drink cheap gin and party hard all weekend
These men were riot-starter types
Who spent the better part of their money on cards and dice
Livin' the life of loose women and vice
Pickin' fights, seduced by all seven different types
Of sins, a feeding frenzy of Vengeance
Vanity, Lust, Greed and Envy
Devious energy left them half-insane
Laughing deranged like hyenas at their bastard games;
As each glass was drained and each bet was placed
They set the pace and left space for their next mistakes
All excessive waste and drunken rambling
With eager hands trembling; eventually gambling
Leads to panhandling, But that's the price
You pay to cast the dice, and other appetites
Pay the same sacrifice, while the false assumption
Is they help us function, when really it's just a dungeon
Of self-consumption
In other words, it's not worth it;
This world is not perfect, but it gets worse if
Flesh is the only god you worship
As mortal men you
Need more than the sinews in your corpse to defend you
But let the story continue, the same as before
Where these three hard-core men drink at the bar
Someone came in the door and ordered a beer
And told a sad story they were sorry to hear;
Choking on tears, he said, "Death is a thief!
My friend was asleep and his breath just ceased
May he rest in peace, and never be stressed;
I guess people ever need to be ready to meet Death!"
And disrespectfully, the three inebriated rioters
Proceeded to curse and debated the guy's words:
"I've heard," stated the first, "Enough about Death!
Every town is gripped in his clutches without rest
What is it about this foe that's so scary? Please
If an adversary bleeds and breathes the same air as me
I can bury it! See, fellas, what I'm tellin'
You is: Death is a villain, and the rest is irrelevant
So let's go kill him!"

When he'd said his piece
The rest agreed, and the three friends hit the streets
And went to seek their destiny, and provoke a confrontation
In a drunken rage, hoping Death would come and face them
Their intoxication made them sure of their purpose
And fed the infernal furnace of their courage, a kernel
Nourished by these three murderous wretches in denial
Less than a mile into their quest to put Death on trial
They met this guy all wrapped in bandages
An old handicapped man, with disadvantages
And the three friends examined his bleeding flesh
And demanded he tell them how he was cheating death
Seeming perplexed, the old man responded with soft words
And said, "I walk the earth like a creature God has cursed!
My lot is the worst and most desperate place to be;
I pray faithfully every day for Death to take me
Waiting patiently, and someday he will arrive
But in the meantime, until I die, I'm still alive."
In a burst of ill-advised pride, the first
Of the three rioters replied, "This guy
Is a spy, or worse! I guess Death is his master
And gives him everlasting life forever after
A benevolent benefactor, perhaps, to have protecting you
But nothing gets a confession faster than weapons do!"
And stepping to this old man with mindless threats
They demanded he tell them where they could find Death
"Find Death?" laughed the old man, "Perhaps you will;
He lives under that tree on that grassy hill."
Ready to kill, with their jagged-edged daggers drawn
The three aggravated braggarts staggered up the lawn
And without dragging on while the story is told
Beneath the tree they found a bag filled with glorious gold
The hoard was more than forty-fold their wildest dreams
And they smiled like demons, hatching violent schemes
While the steam from their previous plan was dissipated;
They were so fixated on the gold, it just abated
And the search for death was traded for work of greater urgency
Now the worst of the three had the first words to speak
And said, "Certainly it seems fortune gave us this gold
To save us from having to work and slave in the cold
But fortune favours the bold, and to spend this treasure
On endless pleasures, to begin we'd better
Take preventative measures, ‘cause if the switch from poor to rich
Is too disproportionate, then law-enforcement will get
Suspicious how we afforded it, and then we'll pay the price
So let's sit tight and play this right:
See, we'll wait 'til late at night, and if all is not lost
Under the cover of darkness we can haul this all off
But for now we'll draw straws, since we've got a lot of time
And one of us can run off and buy a bottle of wine.”
The others thought the plot was fine, and trusted its wit
And the youngest among them drew the cut stick
And rushed to get booze so this could be celebrated
As the other two plotted and whispered while they waited
The worst delegated again and said, "Listen friend
Let's invent a way to get paid a greater dividend
In the end we can each have half this treasure
If we get our acts together now and take drastic measures."
The other asked incredulously, "How can this be
When right now we're bound to split the treasure by three?"
"Let's see," said the first with a savage laugh
"Just imagine the third man gets stabbed in the back
Now, I'm bad at maths, addition and subtraction
But don't we get to split the treasure in half then?
You distract him when he comes back with the wine
And I'll make sure our young friend gets stabbed in the spine
The first attack is mine, then you back me up;
Just slash his gut, and add the last cut
To our friend's bad luck." And because of his greed
The other agreed to this covetous deed
By the trunk of this tree they waited to pounce
While the youngest of the three made his way into town
Weighted-down by the thought of a whole lotta gold
Which inaudibly caught ahold of him and gnawed at his soul
He wanted it so bad he could taste it;
Any part of it shared was like a part of it wasted
And he harboured a hatred in his heart, and decided
Never to let this precious treasure get divided
And guided by the shine of carnal greed
He went to buy the wine, and then to the pharmacy
And, sounding harmless, he asked for this black ointment
That he'd seen used in the past as rat poison
Meaning to trap his boys into drinking tainted wine
While at the same time thinking, "The game is mine!"
Another famous line that became his last words
Cause when he got back the others acted first
And stabbed him mercilessly with vicious blows
And since the kid was quick to give up the ghost
They proposed a victory toast to the crime
And both enjoyed a glass of the poisoned wine
And collapsed, going blind, in a fit of convulsions
Which halted their pulses and ultimately resulted in
Their spirits' expulsions

And because of their greed
They did indeed find Death under the tree

They did indeed find Death under the tree