Note 55 — JANUARY AND MAY:
Reading edition
May in the original is the same wicked, shameless woman that she is described by Pope, but Chaucer is content to put into her mouth the wish that she may die a foul death if she breaks her marriage vows. There is not a hint of the more frightful imprecation she invokes on herself in expressing the hope that she may descend alive into hell when she commits the crime she is meditating at the moment.