183. This is taken from a different part of Le Roman altogether, and is founded on a different argument, viz. the perversity of women's choice, as noticed in ll. 198-200 below. See Le Rom. de la Rose, 7799-7804:—
'Le vaillant homme arriere boute
Et prent le pire de la route:
Là norrit ses amors, et couve
Tout autresinc cum fait la louve,
Cui sa folie tant empire,
Qu'el prent des lous tretout le pire.'
vileins kinde, nature of a villain, a villainous or base disposition. Practically, vileins has here the force of an adjective, and came to be so regarded, as shewn by the formation from it of the adv. vileinsly, which occurs in I. 154, and elsewhere. Similarly, the gen. case wonders became the adj. wonders, which was gradually turned into wondrous; see Wondrous in my Etym. Dictionary.
This adj. vileyns, with the sense of 'villainous,' is unnoticed in
Halliwell and Stratmann. Yet Chaucer uses it often, as the reader may see for himself. See D. 1158, 1268, I. 556, 631, 652, 715, 802, 854, 914; and hence vileinsly, adv., I. 154, 279, Rom. Rose, 1498.