"Reason."
To the disconsolate suitor appears Reason, and does not speak comfortable words. She is described as a middle-aged lady of a comely and dignified appearance, crowned, and made specially in God's image and likeness. She tells him that if he had not put himself under the guidance of Idleness, Love would not have wounded him; that besides Danger, he has made her own daughter Shame his foe, and also Male-Bouche (Scandal, Gossip, Evil-Speaking), the third and most formidable guardian of the Rose. He ought never to have surrendered to Love. In the service of that power
"il a plus poine
Que n'ont hermite ne blanc moine;
La poine en est démesurée,
Et la joie a courte durée."
The Lover does not take this sermon well. He is Love's: she may go about her business, which she does. He bethinks him that he has a companion, Amis (the Friend), who has always been faithful; and he will go to him in his trouble. Indeed Love had bidden him do so. The Friend is obliging and consoling, and says that he knows Danger. His bark is worse than his bite, and if he is spoken softly to he will relent. The Lover takes the advice with only partial success. Danger, at first robustious, softens so far as to say that he has no objection to the Lover loving, only he had better keep clear of his roses. The Friend represents this as an important point gained; and as the next step Pity and Frankness go as his ambassadresses to Danger, who allows Bialacoil to return to him and take him once more to see the Rose, more beautiful than ever. He even, assisted by Venus, is allowed to kiss his love.
"Shame" and "Scandal."
This is very agreeable: but it arouses the two other guardians of whom Reason has vainly warned him, Shame and Evil-Speaking, or Scandal. The latter wakes Jealousy, Fear follows, and Fear and Shame stir up Danger. He keeps closer watch, Jealousy digs a trench round the rose-bush and builds a tower where Bialacoil is immured: and the Lover, his case only made worse by the remembered savour of the Rose on his lips,[147] is left helpless outside. But as the rubric of the poem has it—
"Cyendroit trespassa Guillaume
De Lorris, et n'en fist plus pseaulme."
The later poem.
The work which forty years later Jean de Meung (some say at royal suggestion) added to the piece, so as to make it five times its former length, has been spoken of generally already, and needs less notice in detail. Jean de Meung takes up the theme by once more introducing Reason, whose remonstrances, with the Lover's answers, take nearly half as much room as the whole story hitherto. Then reappears the Friend, who is twice as long-winded as Reason, and brings the tale up to more than ten thousand lines already. At last Love himself takes some pity of his despairing vassal, and besieges the tower where Bialacoil is confined. "False-Seeming." This leads to the introduction of the most striking and characteristic figure of the second part, Faux-Semblant, a variety of Reynard. Bialacoil is freed: but Danger still guards the Rose. Love, beaten, invokes the help of his mother, who sends Nature and Genius to his aid. They talk more than anybody else. But Venus has to come herself before Danger is vanquished and the Lover plucks the Rose.
Contrast of the parts.