"I have a wyf, the worst that may be" - the merchant
the merchant's wife is described as a "shrewe"
January is a "worthy knight"
"for wedlock is so esy and clean, that in this world it is a paradys" - January describing marriage saying it is easy and referencing the garden ofeden
"a wyf is the fruyt of his tresor" - merchant describing his wife
Theophrastus: said that wives bring distress because they are motivated by greed, and January dismisses this
"oold fish and yong flessh" - contrasting January and may with animal imagery
"fair and tendre of age" - January wants someone who is young and beautiful to marry
"warmwex with hands plye" - January wants his wife to be malleable like warm wax
"I feele my lymes stark and suffisaunt" - January says he is up to the task of having a younger wife
"I fare as dooth a tree" - irony of January comparing himself to a young tree (foreshadows the pear tree)
Justinus: figure who is against marriage and tells January the truth about marriage - he says it is expensive and full of worry
Placebo: figure who is for marriage and tells January what he wants to hear
"whoso tooke a mirourpolisshedbright, and sette it in a communemarket-place" - January is in his imagination setting up a market place to select his bride - objectification of women
"ther may no man han parfiteblissestwo" - no one experiences perfecthappinesstwice, he worries that he will not experience heaven if his marriage is heaven on earth
"she may be youre purgatorie" - Justinus links May with the wifeofBath by saying she will be the waiting room between life and death
"Til fresshe May won rewen on his pleyne" - May will take pity on his suffering
"Thus laboureth he til that the daygandawe" - January says he will work hard until the day begins to dawn - reference to sex
"a gardyn: walled al with stoon" - symbolism of the garden and the garden of eden - January's sex garden, walls are symbolic of no escape for may
"where he sit, the lecchour in the tree" - Damian sitting in the tree, the garden becomes a parody of the garden of eden
"that I mighte set my foote upon youre bak" - May will stand of January's back to get up the pear tree to have sex with Damian - comedic climax of the play
"gentilsquire wys, discreet and secree" - how January describes Damian - wise and secretive foreshadows his affair with May
"for of the smalewiket he baar alwey of silver a cliket" - rhyme and onomatopoeia which echoes the sound of unlocking the gate - symbolism of May giving Damian a key to her "wiket"
"he wepeth and he wailethpitously" - January's reaction to becoming blind, and mirrors the beginning with the weeping and wailing
"that loveth Damyan so beningnely that she mootoutherdiensodeynly, or Elles she moot hanhimasherleste" - May says she loves Damian so much that she must either die or have him as she desires for sex
"as good is blind deceyved whan a man may se" - Chaucer implying that even when January could physically see, he was morally blind
"in warm wex hath emprented the clinket" - May uses wax to make an imprint of the key for Damian to get into the garden
"winter is goon" - January foreshadowing his own dismissal by May
"do strepe me and put me in a sak, and in the nexte river do me drenche" - May says that if she should cheat she would be stripped and thrown in the river (first time she speaks)
Pluto and Proserpine: king and queen of the fairies
CRIT [Jay]: "all good feelings Chaucer's audience might have about love and marriage are demolished"
CRIT [Stevens]: "a story intending to show the deceitfulness of women"
CRIT [Harris]: "May is a woman who knows what she wants and will use her wits to achieve it"
CRIT [Tatlock]: "Religion itself is bemocked"
CRIT [Burrow]: "January is subjected to the most unblinking scrutiny throughout the poem"
CRIT [Bruner]: "May is simply another piece of livestock, bought to fulfull a sexual and procreative purpose"
Allegory: a story with a hidden oral or political meaning
Fabliau: a story with sexual innuendos, trickery, wit
Cratylicnaming: when the name means something about the character