Hanged, then, was Croesus, this tremendous king;
His royal sceptre was of no avail.
Tragedy is no other kind of thing
Nor tunes her song save only to bewail
How Fortune, ever fickle, will assail
With sudden stroke the kingdoms of the proud,
And when men trust in her she then will fail
And cover her bright face as with a cloud ….
The Canterbury Tales: The Monk’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer, Page 212.
In this passage the monk refers to a women in the personification of fortune. Again we see that the monk has a trust issue with women by calling her, fortune, a failure. While it is uncertain why the monk has this angst of women, but it holds true throughout all his tales. Instead of looking at the man this story as the creator of his own demise, he blames a feminine entity for his troubles. This shows a total lack of responsibility of Croesus’ for his prior actions.
