"Ce est li Rommanz de la Rose,
Ou l'ars d'amorz est tote enclose."
The rose-garden.
The poem itself opens with a description of a dewy morn in May, a description then not so hackneyed as, chiefly from this very instance, it afterwards became, and in itself at once "setting," so to speak, the frame of gracious decorative imagery in which the poet works. He "threaded a silver needle" (an odd but not unusual mediæval pastime was sewing stitches in the sleeve) and strolled, cousant ses manches, towards a river-bank. Then, after bathing his face and seeing the bright gravel flashing through the water, he continued his stroll down-stream, till he saw in front of him a great park (for this translates the mediæval verger much better than "orchard"), on the wall of which were portrayed certain images[144]—Hatred, Felony, Villainy, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, Hypocrisy, and Poverty. These personages, who strike the allegoric and personifying note of the poem, are described at varying length, the last three being perhaps the best. Despite these uninviting figures, the Lover (as he is soon called) desires violently to enter the park; but for a long time he can find no way in, till at length Dame Oyseuse (Idleness) admits him at a postern. She is a very attractive damsel herself; and she tells the Lover that Delight and all his Court haunt the park, and that he has had the ugly images made, apparently as skeletons at the feast, to heighten, not to dash, enjoyment. Entering, the Lover thinks he is in the Earthly Paradise, and after a time he finds the fair company listening to the singing of Dame Lyesse (Pleasure), with much dancing, music, and entertainment of jongleurs and jongleresses to help pass the time.
Courtesy asks him to join in the karole (dance), and he does so, giving full description of her, of Lyesse, of Delight, and of the God of Love himself, with his bow-bearer Sweet-Glances, who carries in each hand five arrows—in the right Beauty, Simpleness, Frankness, Companionship, Fair-Seeming; in the left Pride, Villainy,[145] Shame, Despair, and "New-Thought"—i.e., Fickleness. Other personages—sometimes with the same names, sometimes with different—follow in the train; Cupid watches the Lover that he may take shot at him, and the tale is interrupted by an episode giving the story of Narcissus. Meanwhile the Lover has seen among the flowers of the garden one rose-bud on which he fixes special desires. The thorns keep him off; and Love, having him at vantage, empties the right-hand quiver on him. He yields himself prisoner, and a dialogue between captive and captor follows. Love locks his heart with a gold key; and after giving him a long sermon on his duties, illustrated from the Round Table romances and elsewhere, vanishes, leaving him in no little pain, and still unable to get at the Rose. Suddenly in his distress there appears to him
"Un valet buen et avenant
Bel-Acueil se faisoit clamer,"
and it seems that he was the son of Courtesy.
"Danger."
Bialacoil (to give him his Chaucerian[146] Englishing) is most obliging, and through his help the Lover has nearly reached the Rose, when an ugly personage named Danger in turn makes his appearance. Up to this time there is no very important difficulty in the interpretation of the allegory; but the learned are not at one as to what "Danger" means. The older explanation, and the one to which I myself still incline as most natural and best suiting what follows, is that Danger is the representative of the beloved one's masculine and other guardians—her husband, father, brother, mother, and so forth. Others, however, see in him only subjective obstacles—the coyness, or caprice, or coquettishness of the Beloved herself. But these never troubled a true lover to any great extent; and besides they seem to have been provided for by the arrows in the left hand of Love's bow-bearer, and by Shame (v. infra). At any rate Danger's proceedings are of a most kill-joy nature. He starts from his hiding-place—
"Grans fu, et noirs et hericiés,
S'ot les iex rouges comme feus,
Le nés froncié, le vis hideus,
Et s'escrie comme forcenés."
He abuses Bialacoil for bringing the Lover to the Rose, and turns the Lover out of the park, while Bialacoil flies.