Yet when Daniel disobeyed the king, Nebuchadnezzar lost all dignity, acting like a great beast until God relieved him of his insanity. The proud king constructed a large gold statue that he demanded his subjects pray to or else be cast into a pit of flames. Nabugodonosor (also spelled Nebuchadnezzar), was the king of Babylon who had twice defeated Israel. Hercules' strength was unparalleled, but he was finally defeated when Deianera sent Hercules a poisoned shirt made by Nessus. In the temple where Samson was kept he knocked down two of the pillars, killing himself and everyone else in the temple. Without this strength his enemies cut out Samson's eyes and imprisoned him. He would have conquered the world if he had not told Delilah that his strength came from his refusal to cut his hair. The story is that Samson slew one thousand men with an ass's jawbone, then prayed for God to quench his thirst. Sampson's tale is told at greater length, explaining how he fell from grace when he admitted his secret to his wife, who betrayed it to his enemies and then took another lover. Adam is next, the one man not born of original sin, who was driven from Paradise. Lucifer is the first tragedy told, who fell from an angelic heaven down to Hell. The Monk's tale is a collection of tragedies, designed to advise men not to trust in blind prosperity but be aware that Fortune is fickle and ever-changing.
Tragedy, as the Monk defines it, is a story from an old book of someone who fell from high degree and great prosperity into misery, and ended wretchedly tragedies are also usually presented in hexameters, he thinks. The Monk takes all this joking well, and promises a tale (or two, or three) of the life of Edward the Confessor, but first, announces he will tell some tragedies, of which he has a hundred stored up. Admiring the Monk's skin and stature, the Host jokes that he could be a good breeding fowl, if only he were allowed to breed! Religion, the Host goes on, has taken up all the best breeding people, and left just the puny creatures to populate the world. Turning to address the Monk, he bids him be 'myrie of cheere', and asks whether his name is John, Thomas or Albon, asking which house he is of. When Chaucer's tale of Melibee has finished, the Host says (for the second time) that he wishes his wife could hear the tale of Prudence and her patience and wise counsel: his wife, he goes on to extrapolate, is an ill-tempered shrew.
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