The Romance of the Rose

The Romance of the Rose 179 The Romance of the Rose The Romance of the Rose, an allegorical dream-vision poem stemming from the troubadour tradition of courtly love and written in medieval French, was perhaps the most widely read book in 14th- and 15th-century Europe. During the century of high scholasticism (the 13th), this most influential of all works of medieval romance emerged. It was composed in two stages. Around 1230, Guillaume de Lorris came out with the first 4,058 lines, without quite finishing it. Around 1275 (the year after the death of both Aquinas and Bonaventure), Jean de Meun, a very different personality who studied at the University of Paris and who warred against the mendicant orders, produced a massive amplification of Guillaume’s work, adding 17,724 lines, shifting towards the encyclopedic and dialectic, changing its character from earnest to satiric. C. S. Lewis’s scholarly work The Allegory of Love helped to revive modern interest in the work. Lewis argues for the realism of the allegorical method employed in The Romance: “[This method] was originally forced into existence by a profound moral revolution occurring in the latter days of paganism. For reasons of which we know nothing at all. , men’s gaze was turned inward. But a gaze so turned sees, not the compact ‘character’ of modern fiction, but the contending forces which cannot be described at all except by allegory.” 181 Guillaume de Lorris/Jean de Meun Prologue In the twentieth year of my life, at the time when Love exacts his tribute from young people, I lay down one night, as usual, and slept very soundly. During my sleep I saw a very beautiful and pleasing dream; but in this dream was nothing which did not happen almost as the dream told it. Now I wish to tell this dream in rhyme, the more to make your hearts rejoice, since Love both begs and commands me to do so. And if anyone asks what I wish the romance to be called, which I begin here, it is the Romance of the Rose, in which the whole art of love is contained. Its matter is good and new; and God grant that she for whom I have undertaken it may receive it with grace. It is she who is so precious and so worthy to be loved that she should be called Rose. I became aware that it was May, five years or more ago; I dreamed that I was filled with joy in May, the amorous month, when everything rejoices, when one sees no bush or hedge that does not wish to adorn itself with new leaves. Happy, light-hearted, and full of joy, I turned toward a river that I heard murmuring nearby, for I knew no place more beautiful to enjoy myself than by that river, whose water gushed deep and swift from a nearby hill. It was as clear and cold as that from a well or fountain, and it was but little smaller than the Seine, but was spread out wider. I had never seen a stream so attractively situated, and I was pleased and happy to look upon that charming place. As I washed my face and refreshed myself with the clear, shining water, I saw that the bottom of the stream was all covered and paved with gravel. The wide, beautiful meadow came right to the edge of the water. The mild morning air was clear, pure, and beautiful. Then I walked out away through the meadow, enjoying myself as I kept to the river bank in descending the stream. When I had gone ahead thus for a little, I saw a large and roomy gar- den, entirely enclosed by a high crenelated wall, sculptured outside and laid out with many fine inscriptions. I willingly admired the images and paintings, and I shall recount to you and tell you the appearance of these images as they occur to my memory. In the middle I saw Hatred, who certainly seemed to be the one who incites anger and strife. In appearance the image was choleric, quarrel- some, and full of malice; it was not pleasing, but looked like a woman crazy with rage. Her face was sullen and wrinkled, with a pug nose; she was hideous and covered with filth and repulsively wrapped up in atowel. 182 The Romance of the Rose Beside her, to the left, was another image of the same size. I read her name, Felony, beneath her head. I looked back to the right and saw another image named Villainy, who was of the same nature and workmanship as the other two. She seemed a creature of evil, an insolent and unbridled scandalmonger. He who could produce an image of such a truly contemptible creature knew how to paint and portray; she seemed full of all sorts of defamation, a woman who knew little of how to honor what she should. Covetousness was painted next. It is she who entices men to take and to give nothing, to collect valuable possessions; it is she who, in her great passion for heaping up treasure, loans money at usury to many. She excites thieves and rascals to theft; and it is a great evil and sorrow that in the end many of them must hang. It is she who causes people to take the goods of others, to rob, to ravish, to commit fraud, to keep false accounts, and to tally falsely. It is she who leads people to the trickery and trumped-up litigation by which boys and girls have often been defrauded of their rightful inheritances. This image had hands that were clawlike and hooked, appropriate to Covetousness, who is always in a fever to get the possessions of another. She understands nothing else, but esteems most highly what belongs to another. There was another image, called Avarice, seated side by side with Covetousness. This image was ugly; dirty, badly shaped, thin and miserable-looking, she was as green as a shallot; she was so discolored that she looked sick. She seemed a thing dying of hunger, one who lived on bread kneaded with strong, bitter caustic. She was not only thin but poorly clothed: she had an old coat, torn as if it had been among dogs, that was poor and worn out and full of old patches. Beside her, on a little thin clothespole, hung a mantle and a coat of sleazy material. The mantle had no fur linings, but very poor and shabby ones of heavy, shaggy black lamb. Her dress was at least ten years old, but, in anything to do with clothing, Avarice rarely had any desire to hurry. It weighed heavily on her to use the dress at all, for when it was worn out and tattered, she would be very distressed over a new one and would suffer great privation before she would have another made. In her hand Avarice held a purse which she hid and tied up so tightly that she had to wait a long time before she could draw anything out of it. But she would have none of it; she went to the purse hoping only that she might take nothing away from it. Envy was portrayed next. She never laughed in her life nor enjoyed anything unless she saw or heard a report of some disaster. Nothing could please her so much as unhappiness and misfortune. She is very 183 Guillaume de Lorris/Jean de Meun pleased when she sees misfortune fall on any good man, and she rejoices in her heart when she sees a great ancestral house fall from its eminence or come into shame. But she is deeply wounded when anyone rises to honor through his intelligence and ability. Understand that she must be angry when good things happen. Envy is so cruel that she bears no loyalty to any companion. However closely a relative may hold to her, she has none to whom she is not an enemy; for, certainly, she would not want good fortune to come even to her father. But understand too that she pays a heavy price for her malice. When men do good she is in such terrible torment and grief that she is just short of melting in the heat of her passion. Her wicked heart so cuts her in pieces that God and men are revenged on her. Envy finishes no hour without imputing some evil to blameless men. I believe that if she knew the noblest gentleman here or beyond the sea, she would want to defame him; and if he were so well trained that she could neither entirely ruin his reputation nor bring him into low esteem, then she would want at least to deprecate his ability and, through her gossip, to minimize his honor. Next, quite close to Envy, Sorrow was painted on the wall. Her color seemed to show that she had some great sorrow in her heart. She looked as though she had jaundice, and Avarice was nothing like as pale and gaunt as she. The dismay, the distress, the burdens and troubles that she suffered, day and night, had made her grow yellow and lean and pale. Nothing in the world ever lived in such martrydom nor was ever so greatly enraged as it seemed that she was; I believe that no one ever knew how to do anything for her that could please her. She did not even want to be consoled at any price nor to let go of the sorrow she had in her heart; she had angered her heart too much, and her grief was too deep-rooted.

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