Note 65 — JANUARY AND MAY:
Reading edition
The queen has just been boasting that she will endow the sex with the art of ingenious lying to cover the violation of their most solemn vows, and now she tauntingly tells her husband that it is not in woman to break her word. This contradiction is imported into the story by Pope. The original is as follows:—
Dame, quoth this Pluto, be no longer wroth, I give it up; but since I swore mine oath, That I will grante him his sight again, My word shall stand, I warne you certain; I am a king it sit me not to lie. And I, quoth she, am queen of faierie. Her answer shall she have I undertake, Let us no more wordes hereof make.