The Romance of the Rose

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1230

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

The narrator—who is presented as the author, Guillaume de Lorris—expounds on the potential worth of dreams, insisting that some dreams reveal events that will eventually happen. He says that when he was 20, he had a dream that came true. He has decided to retell that dream as a poem, as demanded by the god Love. This poem, The Romance of the Rose, contains “the whole art of love” (3).

The narrator describes the beauty of spring in the month of May, describing the appearance of the trees, flowers, and singing birds. He goes for a walk by a beautiful stream and washes his face. After walking a bit further, he stumbles upon a gigantic garden surrounded by decorated walls.

The narrator describes the images on the wall, which are women representing different concepts through allegory. He first describes Hate and Cruelty and Baseness, who are both evil looking. Covetousness has grabbing hands to steal possessions, and Avarice wears dirty clothes because she refuses to buy new ones. Envy is beside them, scowling at everyone good or successful, and Sorrow is unable to let go of her grief and stop weeping. Next to them is Old Age, who is an old but childish woman. Religious Hypocrisy appears to be a beautiful, religious woman but is entirely concerned with appearances. The last woman in the row is Poverty, who is starving and nearly naked.

After viewing these images, the narrator decides to find a way into the beautiful garden. He finds a small, closed door and knocks; a beautiful woman opens the door. She is blond, has perfect skin, and is wearing a gold-embroidered headdress, a green gown, and white gloves. It is clear that she has little to do except look beautiful, and she appropriately introduces herself as Idleness, the friend of Pleasure, the garden’s owner. She agrees to let the narrator in. Idleness brings the narrator to Pleasure, who is surrounded by angelic people, all dancing to the music of jongleurs and minstrels and the voice of a woman named Joy. A happy woman named Courtesy welcomes the narrator and invites him to dance with the group.

The narrator then describes the people in Pleasure’s court. Pleasure himself is a very handsome man with curly blond hair dressed in rich clothes; his lover is Joy, who complements him perfectly. The God of Love stands beside them in a grand robe decorated with shapes, animals, and flowers; he is covered in living birds. Pleasant Looks, a young man who carries the god’s bows and arrows, attends Love. Love has 10 arrows: Beauty, Simplicity, Generosity of Spirit, Company, Fair Seeming, Pride, Baseness, Shame, Despair, and Inconstancy. The narrator promises to explain these more later.

Also attending Love is Beauty, an unadorned woman with blond hair falling to her heels. Next to her is Wealth, a dignified woman in an extremely expensive gown. Largesse is a woman from the line of Alexander the Great who gives away everything she owns and is blessed by God to always have more to give. She is holding the hand of a successful knight from the bloodline of King Arthur.

Next is Generosity of Spirit, who is innocent, gentle, and wearing a tight-fitting garment. Courtesy stands with a handsome knight. Last comes Youth, a young girl who openly kisses her equally young lover. The dance ends, and the dancers disperse. The narrator wanders off into the garden, but Love strings his bow and hunts him.

Chapter 2 Summary

The narrator stops beneath a large pine tree next to a spring, saying, “Never since Charlemagne or Pepin had such a handsome pine been seen, and it had grown so high that it was the tallest tree in the garden” (23). The narrator reads a plaque and realizes that he has found the spring where Narcissus from Greek legend died. He retells a version of the myth, in which Echo, a nymph, falls in love with the handsome young man Narcissus, but he rejects her so harshly that her heart breaks and she dies. As she dies, she requests that Narcissus also be rejected so that he can feel her pain. God punishes Narcissus to fall in love with his own reflection, and he dies at the spring from grief at not being able to consummate that love. The narrator warns the “ladies” listening to not leave their own lovers to die.

The narrator investigates the pool himself and sees two crystals that reflect the sunlight beautifully and mirror the entire garden. The mirror of the crystals is so clear that anyone who sees anything in it will fall in love with the reflection. The narrator glimpses the titular rose, a budding flower in the nearby garden, and becomes enamored with it. He refuses to leave and take it, however, not wanting to anger Pleasure.

As the narrator pines, Love sneaks up behind him and shoots him with the arrow Beauty. The narrator tries to pull out the arrow, but the point gets stuck in his heart. Love subsequently shoots him four more times: Simplicity makes him fall deeper in love, Courtesy causes him deep pain, and Company nearly kills him, but Fair Seeming soothes him and transforms him into a servant of Love. Love then appears to him and demands that he surrender.

The narrator is overtaken with admiration for Love and immediately declares fealty to him. He tries to kiss Love’s foot, but Love, charmed by his loyalty, kisses him on the mouth. Love then demands a promise of his loyalty, but the narrator insists that his heart belongs to him and asks him to make a key for it. Love agrees and gently locks up the narrator’s heart in his chest. The narrator asks to know what Love wants him to do. Love then explains his “commandments” in detail. The narrator says that “anyone who aspires to love should pay attention” to these commandments (32).

Love insists that his followers abandon Baseness and do not slander others. He provides details about polite behavior to others that will help build a good reputation. While Love insists that his followers should not be proud, he claims that elegance is not Pride and says they should aim to dress well and keep themselves clean. Even if lovers are sad, they should try to be joyful and bring pleasure to those around them with their individual gifts and possessions.

Love warns that love causes immense pain, which might isolate the narrator from others. If this happens, however, the narrator will never be able to satisfy himself and will hurt himself more. He also warns that the narrator will always find himself unable to speak properly to his lover out of shyness and overwhelming emotion. He will be tormented by visions of his lover that will never be fully satisfied. Love tells the narrator that he should go to the house of his lover to glimpse her but leave before anyone else sees him, kissing the doorway as he goes. He commands him to be generous and kind to the servants of his lover’s house.

After this, the narrator asks how love is survivable, and Love answers that pain makes things more worthy and that hope sustains those who are in love as much as it sustains someone imprisoned in a dungeon. He gives the narrator three gifts: Pleasant Thought, which encourages the suffering lover; Pleasant Conversation, which enables him to talk to others about his love; and Pleasant Looks, which shows him the object of his desire and gives him strength.

Chapter 3 Summary

The narrator decides to pursue the rose but hesitates near the hedge. A young man named Fair Welcome, the son of Courtesy, invites him to enter the garden, saying, “If I can help you in any way, you will not need to beg, for I am ready to serve you” (43). They enter the garden together, and the narrator stands happily by the rosebud. Fair Welcome picks a leaf from the bush and gives it to the narrator.

After encouragement, the narrator expresses his devotion to Love and the rosebud to Fair Welcome, who is horrified and betrayed by the narrator’s desire to possess the rosebud. The garden’s protector, Rebuff, emerges from the grass, accompanied by Evil Tongue, Shame, and Fear. Rebuff scolds the narrator and warns Fair Welcome that he is trying to hurt him. Fair Welcome and the narrator flee, and Fair Welcome then leaves the narrator.

The narrator is brokenhearted by his losses. As he mourns, Reason descends from her tower. She scolds him for his childishness and tells him that he should never have come to the garden and met Idleness, as it gave Love a chance to hunt him. She tells him to forget Love since Rebuff and Shame will never let him be happy, and Evil Tongue will seek to destroy his reputation. The narrator grows angry with her and insists that Love owns his heart and body; he would “rather die than that Love should have accused [him] of falseness or treachery” (47). Reason gives up on him and leaves.

Still grieving, the narrator finds a man named Friend and shares his burdens with him. Friend advises him to apologize and flatter Rebuff. The narrator does, and Rebuff reluctantly forgives him but warns him to keep away from the roses. Friend advises the narrator to wait until Rebuff is in a good mood to earn his pity. The narrator returns to the garden and sighs sadly, but Rebuff is too cruel to pity him.

God, however, sends Generosity of Spirit and Pity to speak to Rebuff; they scold him for his cruelty to the narrator and ask him to let Fair Welcome befriend him again, as Love is already causing him enough pain. Rebuff and the women send Fair Welcome back to the narrator; they greet each other with delight. Fair Welcome takes the narrator’s hand and takes him back into the garden.

The rose has grown a bit, and the narrator asks if he can kiss it. Fair Welcome refuses at first since Chastity would grow angry if the kiss progressed any further, but Venus descends and advises Fair Welcome that the narrator is handsome, loyal, and worthy of a kiss. The narrator kisses the rose and is overjoyed.

Evil Tongue sees Fair Welcome and the narrator together and spreads rumors that they are in an “improper” relationship. This awakens Jealousy, who attacks Fair Welcome and tells him that he must be imprisoned in a tower to protect him since Shame cannot restrain him. Shame attempts to step in and advocate for Fair Welcome’s innocence but admits that she has not rebuked him as much as she should. Jealousy decides to build a wall around the rose garden and imprison Fair Welcome in a tower at the center. The narrator, horrified, flees Fair Welcome’s side.

Shame and Fear go to Rebuff and insist that he protect the garden better. They berate him for letting the narrator into the garden. Rebuff admits defeat and begins to cruelly patrol the garden. Jealousy builds walls, ditches, and turrets around and within the rose garden, surrounded by a moat. The castle she builds is stocked with weapons and guarded by 30 men, alongside Shame, Fear, Evil Tongue, and Rebuff. Jealousy imprisons Fair Welcome in the highest tower, with an old woman to guard him.

The narrator grieves; he must have both Fair Welcome and the rose to be happy. He begs Fair Welcome to preserve love for him and fears losing him to imprisonment and Jealousy, saying, “Nothing will ever bring me comfort if I lose your favor, for I have no confidence in anyone else” (61).

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The Romance of the Rose is an allegorical work, using personified abstract concepts to explore the nature and experience of love and desire. The early chapters of the work quickly establish thematic parallels between the differing imagery of the various allegorical characters. Characters who are “desirable” are typically beautiful and blond; characters who are less “desirable” are dark haired and described as ugly. This desirability is not always linked to goodness and evilness, however: Characters like Idleness are not good but are beautiful because Idleness benefits a pining lover.

In the characters surrounding the Rose—Fair Welcome, Jealousy, Rebuff, and so on—the work builds a parallel between femininity and gentleness depending on the allegorical “response” of the woman. Fair Welcome’s openness to the narrator’s love means that he is characterized as gentle, sweet, and almost feminine. In contrast, Rebuff, representing Fair Welcome’s foil (and the beloved’s harsh rejection out of fear of punishment), is described as overtly masculine and cruel. Thus, acceptance is good, and rejection is bad, for the lover. These binaries shape the allegorical development of the rest of the work.

The theme of The Tensions Between Nobility and Poverty is introduced in the passage describing the decorations on the wall surrounding Pleasure’s garden. Three different moral representations of wealth and poverty are shown on the walls: Covetousness, Avarice, and Poverty. All three are condemned by the narrator for distinct reasons: Covetousness causes people to steal, Avarice causes people to hoard and harm themselves, and Poverty is “shamed and despised” by others. While many passages—and the external context of the Bible itself—confirm that those in medieval society are supposed to take care of the poor, Poverty is a woman who will never be loved or cared for. The pitfalls of poverty will be explored further later in the work.

The setting of the work, Pleasure’s garden, sets up the initial allegory as exploring The Complications of Sexuality and Desire rather than a Christian or religious worldview. While Christianity is still deeply present within the text (and becomes more prominent with de Meun’s addition), the characters represented as “holy,” or at least beautiful, are so because they exist under the power of love. Thus, characters like Reason—typically considered a “good” character within Christian literature—can be harshly rejected, while characters like Idleness and Pleasure, who are often maligned in other medieval works, dance with Love as equals. Love’s arrows also speak to the tensions and complexity of the experience of love: Five arrows are helpful and five are harmful, speaking to the conflicted feelings the lover will undergo as he seeks out the rose.

The section also contains an allusion to King Arthur when the narrator notes that Largesse’s companion is a knight from the king’s bloodline. Most stories of courtly love in medieval Europe originated in Arthurian legends of the Round Table, such as Tristan and Iseult or Guinevere and Lancelot. In acknowledging Largesse’s companion as a descendant of Arthur, de Lorris positions his own work as a continuation of the courtly love tradition in literature.