Radix malorum est cupiditas is a saying in Latin that means "the love of money is the root of all evil" (or, in sentence order, the root of evil is avarice). In the mediaeval poet Geoffrey Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale in The Canterbury Tales, this lesson was illustrated through a story about three rogues. The tale begins with the Middle English verse,
Lordings (quoth he), in churche when I preach, I paine me to have an hautein speech, And ring it out, as round as doth a bell, For I know all by rote that I tell. My theme is always one, and ever was; Radix malorum est cupiditas.
The three rogues have a friend who has recently died, and angry about this, and more generally about all the other people who die, they resolve to find and then to kill Death himself. They ask an old man where they can find him, and he points to a tree just out of town. Under the tree they find a pile of gold, and in glee they forget all about their quest to find death. They agree to wait until night so nobody would see them taking the gold home, and that they should have some supplies for the wait. One of them is sent off to the town to bring back food and wine for the wait. While he is away this rogue schemes to kill the other two by putting rat poison in the wine and take the gold for himself. In the meantime, the two waiting at the tree agree to ambush and kill the one fetching the supplies when he returns, so they can have more gold for themselves. The rogue comes back with the food and rat-poisoned wine. The other two kill him. Then, to celebrate they drink the wine, and die. So, of course, they did find death underneath the tree after all.
