knight, Shope him to livë full deliciously: His housing, his array, as honestly To his degree was maked as a king’s. Amongës other of his honest things He had a garden wallëd all with stone; So fair a garden wot I nowhere none. For out of doubt I verily suppose That he that wrote the Romance of the Rose Could not of it the beauty well devise; Nor Priapus mightë not well suffice, Though he be god of gardens, for to tell The beauty of the garden, and the well That stood under a laurel always green. Full often time he, Pluto, and his queen Proserpina, and all their faërie, Disported them and madë melody About that well, and danced, as men told. This noble knight, this January old, Such dainty had in it to walk and play, That he would suffer no wight to bear the key, Save he himself, for of the small wickét He bare always of silver a clikét, With which, when that him list, he it unshet. And when that he would pay his wifë’s debt, In summer season, thither would he go, And May his wife, and no wight but they two; And thingës which that were not done in bed, He in the garden them perform’d and sped. And in this wisë many a merry day Lived this January and fresh May, But worldly joy may not always endure To January, nor to no creatúre.
O sudden hap! O thou fortúne unstable! Like to the scorpión so deceiváble, That fhatt’rest with thy head when thou wilt sting; Thy tail is death, through thine envenoming. O brittle joy! O sweetë poison quaint! O monster, that so subtilly canst paint Thy giftës, under hue of steadfastness, That thou deceivest bothë more and less! Why hast thou January thus deceiv’d, That haddest him for thy full friend receiv’d? And now thou hast bereft him both his eyen, For sorrow of which desireth he to dien. Alas! this noble January free, Amid his lust and his prosperity Is waxen blind, and that all suddenly. He weeped and he wailed piteously; And therewithal the fire of jealousy (Lest that his wife should fall in some follý) So burnt his heartë, that he wouldë fain, That some man bothë him and her had slain; For neither after his death, nor in his life, Ne would he that she were no love nor wife, But ever live as widow in clothës black, Sole as the turtle that hath lost her make. But at the last, after a