[137] Works of Marie; ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1820; or ed. Warnke, Halle, 1885. The Lyoner Ysopet, with the Anonymus; ed. Förster, Heilbronn, 1882.
[138] Roman du (should be de) Renart: ed. Méon and Chabaille, 5 vols., Paris, 1826-35; ed. Martin, 3 vols. text and 1 critical observations, Strasburg, 1882-87. Reincke de Vos, ed. Prien, Halle, 1887, with a valuable bibliography. Reinaert, ed. Martin, Paderborn, 1874. Reinardus Vulpes, ed. Mone, Stuttgart, 1834. Reinhart Fuchs, ed. Grimm, Berlin, 1832. On the story there is perhaps nothing better than Carlyle, as quoted supra.
[139] This, which is not so much a branch as an independent fabliau, is attributed to Rutebœuf, v. infra.
[140] The Teutonic versions are consolidated into a more continuous story. But of the oldest High German version, that of the Glichezare, we have but part, and Reincke de Vos does not reach seven thousand verses. The French forms are therefore certainly to be preferred.
[141] Méon, iii. 82; Martin, ii. 43.
[142] Ed. Michel. Paris, 1864. One of the younger French scholars, who, under the teaching of M. Gaston Paris, have taken in hand various sections of mediæval literature, M. Langlois, has bestowed much attention on the Rose, and has produced a monograph on it, Origines et Sources du Roman de la Rose. Paris, 1890.
[143] "Sloth" is a rather unhappy substitute for Accidia (ἀκήδεια), the gloomy and impious despair and indifference to good living and even life, of which sloth itself is but a partial result.
[144] "Seven" says the verse chapter-heading, which is a feature of the poem; but the actual text does not mention the number, and it will be seen that there were in fact ten. The author of the headings was no doubt thinking of the Seven Deadly Sins.
[145] Vilenie is never an easy word to translate: it means general misconduct and disagreeable behaviour.
[146] I am well aware of everything that has been said about and against the Chaucerian authorship of the English Rose. But until the learned philologists who deny that authorship in whole or in part agree a little better among themselves, they must allow literary critics at least to suspend their judgment.