The meaning is made clear Edmund Spenser, older contemporary of Shakespeare, whose pageant of the months, from the final fragment of his “Faerie Queene”, can conveniently figure in ‘Poetry Monthly’ :
JANUARY
Then came old January, wrappèd well
In many weeds to keep the cold away;
Yet did he quake and quiver, like to quell,
And blow his nails to warm them if he may;
For they were numb’d with holding all the day
An hatchet keen, with which he fellèd wood
And from the trees did lop the needless spray:
Upon an huge great Earth-pot stean he stood,
From whose wide mouth there flowed forth the Roman flood.Previous: Winter – William Shakespeare
Next: To Winter – William Blake
