On page 64, there is male domination illustrated, ‘…for a smale wiket / He baar alwey of silver a cliket’. January will enter when he pleases with his fresh May and would accomplish things that were not done in bed, ‘…parfourned hem and spedde’. It implies that whoever has the key, has the lady. Nevertheless, a garden is a place for youthful and fresh people, not jealous people. In line 845, there is a heightened verse, exclamatory, ‘O sodeyn hap, o thou Fortune unstable!’. Heightened language is used when expressing emotive language. The dilemma that January has experienced is that he has become blind. ‘Is woxen blind’. He is very upset and vulnerable and weak, ‘He wepeth and he wayleth pitously’. He is growing senile, betrayed and far more jealous ‘…the fyr of jalouise’. Here, the use of negative jargon is blatant. Since January has become blind, he has become very possessive and jealous. He eventually accepted after two months that he was blind, ‘…after a month or tweye’. His envy has consumed him because his loving fresh May loves Damian, ‘That loveth Damian so graciously’. This forces January to keep May at his side at all costs, ‘That hadde an hand upon hire evermo’. January can mould her behaviour by having her by his side.
May’s dilemma is the fact that she loves and desires Damian so greatly. She cannot express her affection because she cannot escape from January. ‘That she must either dyen sodeynly’. He has a strong hold on her, She does not speak because January’s hearing has grown more sensitive, ‘But of that Januarie moste it heere’. To her advantage, she already knows the aim of Damian’s plan. In lines 895 – 898 has a proverb in it, ‘O Januarie, what myghte it thee availle, / Thogh thou myghtest se as fer as shippes saille? / For as good as is blynd deceived be / As to be deceived whan a man may se’. These lines indicate a moral and a sententia. This shows the use of exclamatory and apostrophe. In lines 899 – 901, ‘Lo, Argus, which that hadde an hundred yen’, is an exemplum and allusion. Argus was tricked by his wife even thought he had hundreds of eyes to look at her. January and his fresh May would enter the garden and quickly closing the gate after them, ‘Ther nys namoore to seye, but hastily’. At this time, January does not want anybody else to enter the garden apart from him or her only. But, he does not know that an intruder Damian has already entered the garden. Chaucer is playing with two attached characters January and May that already seems impossible to perceive them as a couple because of their names. There is a classical love reference of Piramus and Tesbee who were separated by a high wall by their parents. They loved each other very much and they would whisper through the holes in the wall to talk to each other, ‘rownynge thrugh a wal’. This is an example of a love difficulty. Hence, January, May and Damian. This can be called a love triangle.
Damian’s dilemma is wanting May so greatly. He knows May’s plan and is ready to take his first move by entering the garden from the key that May has given him. ‘…with his cliket / This Damyan thane hath opened the wyket / And in he stirte, and that in swich manere / And stille he sit under a bussh anon’. This actually shows that he is not so noble. Damian is a squire, training to be a knight. He who loves would risk anything. Here, Damian has hidden under a bush. This signifies that he is a stock figure of a fabliau. He just desires a ‘fling’ with May. They are perfectly fitted for the role of courtly lovers. Also, showing the true presentations of Damian and May.
There is a conjunction in line 920, ‘But’. This line in particular is very colloquial compared to the rest of the text. ‘But now to purpos’, is a sign of caesura. From lines 920 - 925 there is a shift of register from formal to euphuism informal, ‘egging of his wyf’, ‘pleye’, ‘morwe’. It is incredibly down to earth register. This passage has mainly high formal rhetorical style of language changing to colloquial. This is called Bathos. Again, exclamatory and classical allusion line 913 with ‘O noble Ovide, ful sooth seystou, God woot…’.