"The charge of dulness once made against this highly imaginative and brilliant book, successive English writers, until quite recent times have been content to accept the verdict, though Professor Morley and others have of late ably repelled the charge. If further testimony were necessary as to the falsity of the accusation, and the opinion of one who has found a grateful pastime in translating it might be considered of any weight, he would not hesitate to traverse the attribution of dulness, and to assert that it is a poem of extreme interest, written as to the first part with delicate fancy, sweet appreciation of natural beauty, clear insight, and skilful invention, while J. de Meun's continuation is distinguished by vigor, brilliant invention, and close observation of human nature. The Thirteenth Century lives before us."
The Rose is written on a lofty plane of literary value, and the fact that it was so popular, speaks well for the taste of the times and for the enthusiasm of the people for the more serious forms of literature. Not that the Romance of the Rose is a very serious book itself, but if we compare it with the popular publications which barely touch the realities of life in the modern time, it will seem eminently serious. In spite of the years that have elapsed since its original publication it has not lost all its interest, even for a casual reader, and especially for one whose principal study is mankind in its varying environment down the ages, for it presents a very interesting picture of men and their ways in this wonderful century. Here, as in the stories of Reynard the Fox, one is brought face to face with the fact that men and women have not changed and that the peccadillos of our own generation have their history in the Middle Ages also. Take, for instance, the question of the too great love of money which is now the subject of so much writing and sermonizing. One might think that at least this was [{217}] modern. Here, however, is what the author of the Romance of the Rose has to say about it:
Three cruel vengeances pursue
These miserable wretches who
Hoard up their worthless wealth: great toil
Is theirs to win it; then their spoil
They fear to lose; and lastly, grieve
Most bitterly that they must leave
Their hoards behind them. Cursed they die
Who living, lived but wretchedly;
For no man, if he lack of love.
Hath peace below or joy above.
If those who heap up wealth would show
Fair love to others, they would go
Through life beloved, and thus would reign
Sweet happy days. If they were fain,
Who hold so much of good to shower around
Their bounty unto those they found
In need thereof, and nobly lent
Their money, free from measurement
Of usury (yet gave it not
To idle gangrel men), I wot
That then throughout the land were seen
No pauper carl or starveling quean.
But lust of wealth doth so abase
Man's heart, that even love's sweet grace
Bows down before it; men but love
Their neighbors that their love may prove
A profit, and both bought and sold
Are friendships at the price of gold.
Nay, shameless women set to hire
Their bodies, heedless of hell-fire;
It is after reading a passage like this in a book written in the Thirteenth Century that one feels the full truth of that expression of the greatest of American critics, James Russell Lowell, which so often comes back to mind with regard to the works of this century, that to read a classic is like reading a commentary on the morning paper. When this principle is [{218}] applied the other way, I suppose it may be said, that when a book written in the long ago sounds as if it were the utterance of some one aroused by the evils round him in our modern life, then it springs from so close to the heart of nature that it is destined to live and have an influence far beyond its own time. The Romance of the Rose, written seven centuries ago, now promises to have renewed youth in the awakening of interest in our Gothic ancestors and their accomplishments, before the over-praised renaissance came to trouble the stream of thought and writing.
Other passages serve to show how completely the old-time poet realized all the abuses of the desire for wealth, and how much it makes men waste their lives over unessentials, instead of trying to make existence worth while for themselves and others. Here is an arraignment of the strenuous life of business every line of which is as true for us as it was for the poet's generation:
'Tis truth (though some 'twill little please)
To hear the trader knows no ease;
For ever in his soul a prey
To anxious care of how he may
Amass more wealth: this mad desire
Doth all his thought and actions fire.
Devising means whereby to stuff
His barns and coffers, for 'enough'
He ne'er can have, but hungreth yet
His neighbors' goods and gold to get.
It is as though for thirst he fain
Would quaff the volume of the Seine
At one full draught, and yet should fail
To find its waters of avail
To quench his longing. What distress,
What anguish, wrath, and bitterness
Devour the wretch! fell rage and spite
Possess his spirit day and night.
And tear his heart; the fear of want
Pursues him like a spectre gaunt.
The more he hath, a wider mouth
He opes, no draught can quench his drouth.
The old poet pictures the happiness of the poor man by contrast, and can in conclusion depict even more pitilessly the real poverty of spirit of the man who "having, struggleth still to get" and never stops to enjoy life itself by helping his fellows:
Light-heart and gay
Goes many a beggar by the way,
But little heeding though his back
Be bent beneath a charcoal sack.
They labor patiently and sing.
And dance, and laugh at whatso thing
Befalls, for havings care they nought.
But feed on scraps and chitlings bought
Beside St. Marcel's, and dispend
Their gains for wassail, then, straight wend
Once more to work, not grumblingly.
But light of heart as bird on tree
Winning their bread without desire
To fleece their neighbors. Nought they tire
Of this their round, but week by week
In mirth and work contentment seek;
Returning when their work is done
Once more to swill the jovial tun.
And he who what he holds esteems
Enough, is rich beyond the dreams
Of many a dreary usurer,
And lives his life-days happier far;
For nought it signifies what gains
The wretched usurer makes, the pains
Of poverty afflict him yet
Who having, struggleth still to get.
The pictures are as true to life at the beginning of the Twentieth Century as they were in the latter half of the Thirteenth. There are little touches of realism in both the pictures, which show at once how acute an observer, how full of humor his appreciation, and yet how sympathetic a writer the author of the Romance was, and at the same time reveal something of the sociological value of his work. It discloses what is so easily concealed under the mask of formal historical writing and [{220}] tells us of the people rather than of the few great ones among them, or those whom time and chance had made leaders of men. It seems long to read but as a recent translator has said, it represents only the file of a newspaper for eighteen months, and while it talks of quite as trivial things as the modern newspaper, the information is of a kind that is likely to do more good, and prove of more satisfaction, than the passing crimes and scandals that now occupy over-anxious readers.