The Romance of the Rose

Guillaume de Lorris wrote the first 4000 lines of this poem between 1225 and 1230. Jean de Meun wrote the remainder, feeling perhaps that the poem was unfinished, between 1269 and 1278. In total, the poem is about 22,000 lines long. Jean de Meun had a lot to say. The poem is preserved in over 200 manuscripts. (More than The Canterbury Tales.) Chaucer produced a translation of this poem.

I've read Guillaume's portion today, and the allegory is quite tasteful and pleasant. It is easiest to go through if I give a catalogue of character, a brief summary of the plot, and then a few observations.

Characters

1. Dreamer -  Rather self explanatory.Soon falls into a dream vision.
2. The Images on the Walls of the Garden
1. Hate - (f) woman wild with fury
2. Cruelty - (f)
3. Baseness - (f) immoderate scandalmonger
4. Covetousness - (f) take and give nothing in return
5. Avarice - (f) give nothing
6. Envy - (f) hates the best, tears down all who do good
7. Sorrow - (f)tormented
8. Old Age - (f) aged, wrinkled, cold
9. Religious Hypocrisy - (f) fearlessly commits any crime, though appearing religious
10. Poverty - (f) naked, but for a sack.
3. The Dance in the Garden
1. Idleness - (f) opens the door for the Dreamer - enjoys amusements
2. Pleasure - (m) intimate friend of Idleness, owns garden and built its walls
3. Courtesy - (f) invites Dreamer into the dance
4. Joy - (f) Pleasure's sweetheart
5. God of Love - (m) ruler of lovers, humbler of the haughty, owner of two bows with five arrows each
1. Beauty
2. Simplicity
3. Generosity of Spirit
4. Company
5. Fair Seeming
6. Pride
7. Baseness
8. Shame
9. Despair
10. Inconstancy
6. Beauty - (f) resplendent lady
7. Wealth - (f) lavish lady, wearing the most distinguished jewelry, stones with magical properties
1. Wealth's lover, unnamed - a well-kept man
8. Largesse - (f) giver of goods
1. The accompanying knight from Arthur's court, courageous and strong in tournaments
9. Generosity of Spirit - (f)whiter than snow
10. Youth - (f) the 12 year old lover, with a boy of the same age constantly kissing. 
11. Pleasant Looks - (m) carrier of the God of Love's equippage
12. Parable of the Fountain
1. Narcissus
2. Echo
13. Gifts of Love - to soothe the aching lover
1. Pleasant Thought
2. Pleasant Conversation
3. Pleasant Looks
4. The Rosebud - the object of Dreamer's desire, yet unopen and keeping a fresh, aromatic scent
1. Chastity - (f) the keeper of the Rosebud
2. Venus - (f) Chastity's mortal enemy, mother of the God of Love (Eros), goddess or fairy in appearance
3. Fair Welcome - (m) son of Courtesy, intimate friend to Dreamer
4. Keepers of the Bud
1. Rebuff - (m) grouch
2. Evil Tongue - (m) slanderer, alleges inappropriate relationshp between Fair Welcome and Dreamer
3. Shame (f) - daughter by Reason and Fiend, conceived when Reason looked on Fiend
4. Fear (f) - daughter of Jealousy, sent when Reason sent Shame to Chastity to help guard the rosebuds
5. Reason - (f) counsels that one should forget love, rebuffed
6. Friend - (m) hears Dreamer's complaints (in accord with Pleasant Conversation), and counsels diplomacy and patience
7. Aid from Heaven - both seek understanding from Rebuff
1. Generosity of Spirit - (f)
2. Pity - (f) 
8.  Jealousy - (f) argues for building the tower enclosing the buds
1. Lechery, Lust - (m) enemies mentioned by Jealousy 
9. Fortune - (f) the keeper of the wheel that casts the Dreamer down

Summary
After citing Macrobius's commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio (rather like one of Chaucer's heroes, though that hero is actually reading it), the Dreamer falls asleep. He soon dreams of coming across a walled garden in May, and sees the images on the walls, perhaps intended to keep people away that are old, hateful, covetous, and hypocritical. Then he searches for a door and finds only a small one. After he knocks, Idleness answers and lets him in. After wandering through the garden for a bit, he witnesses a dance, and is soon asked to join by Courtesy. A cavalcade of characters follows (not to be misleading though it alliterates - no horses are mentioned), encompassing the positive qualities of the garden, including pleasure, wealth, largesse, love, and youth.

Eventually the Dreamer is encouraged to wander again, and he comes across the Spring of Love, prefaced by the story of Narcissus and Echo. The Dreamer looks, sees the rose bushes and the most beautiful rose bud, and is immediately stricken by the five arrows of Eros meant to inspire love. He is then hunted and taken captive, until the Dreamer swears fealty to the Lover, sealed with a kiss on the mouth. The Lover then gives his commandments, which amount to suffering Love with the few consolations given the Dreamer - to think on his love, to talk about his love, and to see his love.

Dreamer then approaches the bushes, and is greeted by Fair Welcome, who is content to allow him to rest near the bud. When he asks to take the bud away, he is refused, and soon Rebuff and his cronies come by and kick Dreamer out. Disconsolate, he seeks a Friend for the solace of Pleasant Conversation. The Friend counsels diplomacy, which with the intervention of Pity and Generosity of Spirit softens Rebuff enough that he allows the Dreamer back in. He sits with Fair Welcome, who soon allows the Dreamer to kiss the bud.

Upon doing so, Evil Tongue spreads rumors about Fair Welcome and Dreamer. Soon, Jealousy is in on the act, and proclaims that they ought to build a tower around the bud, and keep Fair Welcome at the center of it. Once armed, garrisoned (with Norman soldiers!), and kept, Dreamer despairs, loving from afar both the bud and Fair Welcome.

Thoughts

First, homosocial. There is clearly an implied relationship between Fair Welcome and the Dreamer, and the Dreamer's responses to his absence indicate that, though the allegations might be salacious,  it is less a fabrication of what isn't there than a misconstruing of what is. Fair Welcome serves as the point of access to the bud, a benevolent Pandarus-type character who indulges Dreamer in return for the pleasure of having given welcome. The two are warm, and in the earlier sense of the word intimate. The concluding speech by Dreamer indicates that he misses Fair Welcome more than he does the bud. It is nearly as if the rosebud is the object of Dreamer's affections, but Fair Welcome is its agency, a male duenna who receives the poet's advances. He does not restrict access altogether, but makes sure that such access is appropriate, within the strictures of courtliness that Love must be constrained to serve. In my mind, such agency could easily collapse into a Cyrano-like situation, where the Dreamer ends up loving the agent more than the pretty face, Cyrano over Christian. Could such a flip have happened then? I must think it could, having no evidence to the contrary.

And that goes without mentioning the kiss on the mouth that passes between the God of Love and the Dreamer. Certainly, they would have been less picky about such gestures than we are today, as we have turned a kiss into something erotic all the time. In this story, it may be an allusion of the sex that is to come. It could also be a greeting, or a seal of fealty. I think that we have more of an issue of the ambiguity between those statuses than they did. Either (the traditional assumption) the umbrage of the kiss depended on the situation such that categories didn't blend together, or (the generous assumption) there was a little swearing of fealty and eroticism in any kiss, no matter the primary context. I incline towards the latter. To do otherwise would be to ignore a key part of the context; would even a medieval man kiss the God of Love and not feel a little erotic about it?

Second, details. It's so funny to see the parenthetical explanations in places where I would never suspect that one was needed. For example, when Joy is described next to Pleasure, the poet quickly adds, "Who did not hate him in the least, but had given him her love when she was no more than seven years old" (14). Oh. Okay. I suppose that this is a jibe against those that would claim that Joy (with its exalted refinement) and Pleasure (with its earthly tones) are separate in theological grounds. Bodily pleasure serves as a distraction to salvation or happiness, while joy is the place where happiness takes its rest. The Thomistic view would disagree with Guillaume on this point, and though I don't know enough about other scholastic movements at the time, I suspect others would too.

Also, the details like dress and surroundings fascinate me. Why does it matter that Wealth is wearing a stone that protects against toothaches? (I wonder if anyone has ever cross-referenced this with lapidaries of the time, which also record these weird traits.) Do the many spices in the garden (cloves, liquorice, fresh cardamum, zedoary, anise, cinnamon, and "many delicious spices good to eat after a meal") make it more lavish? What are those spices good to eat after a meal? All I can think of is "dessert" or "after dinner mint." Oh, how impoverished my understanding is. This early tendency towards making lists is masterful compared to many later medieval poems, which turn these brief descriptive interludes into indulgent and obsessive fights over who can do so most lavishly.

Third, Arthurian allusion. Just a note that it does occur, including the company of Largesse, and an allusion to Kay and Gawain where the former comes off horribly and the latter quite well in courtesy. 

Protect me! Tomorrow I plan to put a big dent in Jean de Meun.

(Note - I've also been reading through The English Romance in Time by Helen Cooper and The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I'm nowhere near finishing either, but I might post on them too when I feel less long-winded.)