[143] Most of these epithets of the Virgin come from allegorical interpretations of the text of the Vulgate.
[144] Compare the final vision of Dante in Paradiso, xxxiii.
[145] The reader will notice the Platonism and Neo-Platonism of all this.
[146] Notice that the Arts are here equipping and perfecting the man for his fight against sin;—which corresponds with the common mediaeval view of the function of education.
[147] The poem gives a full description of Fortune and her house, and unstable splendid gifts.
[148] But the different names of Alanus’s Virtues and Vices, and their novel antagonisms, indicate an original view of morality with him. On the Psychomachia see Taylor, Classical Heritage, pp. 278 sqq. and 379. Allegorical combats and débats (both in Latin and in the vernacular tongues) are frequent in mediaeval literature. Cf. e.g. post, Chapter XXX. Again, in certain parabolae ascribed to St. Bernard (Migne 183, col. 757 sqq.) the various virtues, Prudentia, Fortitude, Discretio, Temperantia, Spes, Timor, Sapientia, are so naturally made to act and speak, that one feels they had become personalities proper for poetry and art. Compare Hildegard’s characterizations of the Vices, ante, Chapter XIX.
[149] The English reader will derive much pleasure from F. S. Ellis’s admirable verse translation: The Romance of the Rose (Dent and Co., London, 1900). Each of the three little volumes of this translation has a convenient synopsis of the contents. Those who would know what is known of the tale and its authors should read Langlois’s chapter on it, in Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, edited by Petit de Julleville. It may be said here, for those whose memories need refreshing, that William de Lorris wrote the first part, some forty-two hundred lines, about the year 1237, and died leaving it unfinished; John de Meun took up the poem some thirty years afterwards, and added his sequel of more than eighteen thousand lines.
[150] The names are Englished after Ellis’s translation.
[151] See ante, Chapter XXIII.; De Meun took much from the De planctu naturae of Alanus.
[152] Post, Chapter XXXIII.