Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400)
“There came a privy thief, they call him Death
Who kills us all round here, and in a breath
He speared him through the heart, he never stirred.
And then Death went his way without a word.”
- From The Canterbury Tales (The Pardoner’s Tale) by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated into modern English by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics, 2003).